Undercurrent

The rain had been falling for three days straight when Elena found the laptop open on the kitchen table. Marcus had claimed he was working late again—third time this week—but the screen displayed a live feed from their neighbor's bedroom across the street. Her hands trembled as she traced the ethernet cable snaking toward the window, through a barely-visible gap in the siding, connecting to something outside.

She'd suspected nothing when the technician from the cable company came last month. Young, nervous, with eyes that darted toward Marcus's home office whenever he thought she wasn't looking. Now she understood.

Marcus wasn't having an affair. He was the spy.

The basement flooded that night—water rising from the sump pump Marcus had forgotten to repair. Elena waded through dark inches of it, found the small camera mounted where the cable entered their home. She dismantled it, piece by piece, letting the components fall into the water like offerings to a drowning god.

When Marcus returned, he found her sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, the camera's lens between her thumb and forefinger.

"I know you're working for the private investigation firm," she said quietly. "I called them. Asked about the cable technician. They'd never heard of him."

Marcus's face crumbled. "We needed the money, El. After my layoff—"

"So you became a peeping tom?"

"Corporate espionage! The Millers, they're suspected of insider trading. Their daughter—"

"Their daughter is twelve, Marcus."

The silence stretched between them like a live wire. Elena thought of water—how it could sustain or destroy, how it could erode even the hardest rock given enough time. Their marriage, once solid as bedrock, had been hollowing out for years. She'd felt it happening but had refused to see.

She placed the lens on the table, glass catching moonlight.

"Pack your things," she said. "The water's receding, but I'm not sure anything is left worth saving."