My Husband Stole My Voice for His Mistress

I drove to the old studio at dawn. The building sat on a quiet street in Burbank, brick and peeling paint, the kind of place Finnegan bought years ago and forgot about. He used it once or twice when his main studio flooded. Then he stopped. Too far from the house. Too inconvenient.

I had the key. He kept it on a ring in his desk drawer. I borrowed it three days ago and made a copy at the hardware store on Ventura Boulevard. Cash. No questions.

Inside, the studio smelled like dust and old carpet. Equipment sat under tarps. Cables coiled on the floor like dead snakes. I walked through the control room to the back office. Empty desk. Empty shelves. A window that looked out at a dumpster.

I set the metal file box on the desk. The SD card was still inside. I had checked it twice before I left the house. Once at a red light. Once in the parking lot.

I opened the laptop I bought last week. Another cash purchase. Another gas station on the edge of the valley. I uploaded the dashcam footage to three separate cloud accounts. Different passwords. Different security questions. I wrote the login information in a notebook using a code Jonah and I made up when we were kids. Then I photographed the notebook and deleted the photos from the camera roll but not from the hidden album I created in the settings.

I put the SD card back in the file box and hid the box inside a cabinet behind a stack of old session logs. Then I took out the folder I had been building for two weeks.

Inside were printed screenshots of every file I found in Finnegan's studio. Timestamps. Metadata. Song titles cross-referenced with Melina's discography. I had made a spreadsheet. Dates on one axis. Releases on the other. The pattern was clean. Surgical.

Every original composition I wrote before the accident had surfaced in Melina's catalogue within eighteen months. Some of them note-for-note. Others rebuilt but unmistakable. The bridge from a song I wrote at nineteen about my mother's death. The chorus from a ballad I hummed into my phone at midnight after a fight with an ex-boyfriend. The melody I composed on a piano in a practice room at UCLA.

All of them hers now. All of them platinum.

I added the new documents to the folder. Then I locked it in the cabinet next to the file box.

Before I left, I walked through the studio one more time. I looked at the microphone stand in the corner. The monitors dark and silent. I stood in the center of the room and opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

I drove home and parked in the driveway. The house looked the same. White. Expensive. Quiet.

Finnegan was in the kitchen when I walked in. He looked up from his coffee and smiled.

"Where'd you go?" he asked.

I held up my phone and showed him the note I had typed. *Couldn't sleep. Went for a drive.*

He nodded. "You okay?"

I smiled and nodded back.

He watched me for a moment. His eyes moved over my face like he was reading something I didn't write. Then he set down his coffee and walked over. He put his hands on my shoulders.

"You seem different lately," he said. His voice was soft. Concerned. "Is something bothering you?"

I shook my head.

He didn't let go. "You know you can tell me anything. Right?"

I nodded.

His thumbs pressed into my shoulders. Not hard. Just enough. "I worry about you," he said. "You carry so much. Jonah. The accident. Everything."

I pulled out my phone and typed. *I'm fine. Just tired.*

He read it and kissed my forehead. "Get some rest," he said. "We have dinner tonight. With Melina and some people from the label."

I nodded again.

He let go and went back to his coffee.

I walked upstairs and sat on the edge of the bed. My phone buzzed. A text from a number I didn't recognize.

*Appointment confirmed for tomorrow at 2pm. Dr. Harlan.*

I stared at the screen. I didn't make an appointment with Dr. Harlan. I hadn't seen him in six months.

I went downstairs. Finnegan was on his laptop at the kitchen table.

"Did you schedule something with Dr. Harlan?" I typed and showed him.

He looked up. "Oh. Yeah. I thought it would be good for you to check in. You've seemed stressed."

*I'm fine.*

"I know," he said. "But it doesn't hurt to talk to someone. He's been so helpful over the years."

I looked at him. He looked back. Calm. Steady. Loving.

"It's just a wellness visit," he said. "Nothing formal. I already cleared it with your insurance."

I nodded slowly.

He smiled. "Good. I'll drive you."

That night we went to dinner at a restaurant in West Hollywood. Exposed brick. Edison bulbs. A private room in the back.

Melina was already there when we arrived. She stood up and hugged me. Her perfume was expensive. Her smile was bright.

"Naomi," she said. "It's so good to see you."

I smiled.

Finnegan pulled out my chair. I sat down between him and Melina. Across the table were three people from the label. I recognized one of them from the album launch party.

The conversation started without me. Industry talk. Numbers. Strategy. Someone mentioned the new single. Someone else mentioned the Grammy nominations.

Melina turned to me. "Finnegan says you've been so supportive through this whole process," she said. "It means a lot."

I nodded.

"The album is so personal," she continued. "Every song comes from a real place. Real emotion. That's what makes it connect, you know?"

I kept nodding.

Finnegan put his hand on my knee under the table. "Naomi understands," he said. "She used to write music herself. Before the accident."

Melina's face shifted into sympathy. "I can't imagine," she said. "Losing your voice like that. It must have been devastating."

I looked at her. She looked back. Her eyes were wide. Sincere.

The restaurant's sound system was playing something soft. Acoustic guitar. A woman's voice.

I knew the chord progression. I wrote it on a napkin in a diner when I was nineteen. The night after my mother's funeral.

The song was called "Bones." Melina released it two years ago. It went platinum.

She was still talking. Something about vulnerability. Something about truth.

I reached for my water glass. My hand was steady.

Finnegan squeezed my knee.

I took a sip and set the glass down.

Across the table, someone laughed.

Melina's ring caught the light. White gold. Three diamonds.

I looked at Finnegan. He was watching me. Smiling.

I smiled back.

Under the table, I pressed my thumbnail into my palm until I felt the skin break.