There it was.

 

That lipstick tube, lying in the trashcan. Its hot pink hue, crisscrossed with glitter and promises of "100% AQUA HYDRATION". Maybe its owner had forgotten it in a rush. One thing was for sure, though: she had definitely never used this brand of lipstick before.

 

And she was definitely sure her boyfriend would rather be dead than be seen wearing lipstick.

 

She sighed, putting her hands on her hips. Something tense within her seemed to loosen, to unwind, like the uncoiling of a rope twisted too tightly. Her breathing was short and ragged. She felt flustered, and a quick glance at the mirror told her that her face looked about as red as it felt.

 

She couldn't have this here. Not now.

 

A myriad of coincidences had led her to this moment in time. She had been away on a police case because an autopsy had been too challenging for the sole forensic pathologist in the small nearby town to carry out on his own. She remembered how she had packed her bags quickly, telling her boyfriend that she would be away for a week at least. He kissed her goodbye on the doorstep. 

 

And then he had been called away himself on an urgent business trip to Korea. She liked Korea. She hated it when he left to go there.

 

But her work had finished early and she was back now. On the drive back her mind had already started spinning with ideas on how to welcome him back. How everything changed in just a few fateful seconds! Weren't they just planning on getting married?

 

At least she had discovered it now. Better sooner than later. She was grateful that circumstances had led her here. It was rare to catch her boyfriend making a mistake. He knew how to deceive her too well, he knew the way to hide things in plain sight. 

 

Slowly, methodically, she reached into the trashcan and picked the lipstick up with her fingertips. Placing it in the palm of her hand, she felt its weight. A premium item. A luxury item. Maybe that was what had attracted her boyfriend to this vixen. 

 

Her thoughts began to turn to the past. Where had it all gone wrong? A night at the club, perhaps? One drink too many? If this lipstick had come along, wearing fishnet stockings and a tight-fitting dress, would he have been able to resist? Or was this affair something more sinister, something the man she had loved for five years had been planning secretly all along? Maybe he had had enough of her. Her wispy brown hair, the way she trembled at the sight of any insect, her soft meek voice. She was nothing compared to the girls that could assert themselves. They knew how to get what they wanted out of the men they dated. She could hardly get the waiters to bring the correct order to their table when they went out for dinner. 

 

She dropped the lipstick into a clear bag, leaving the bag open on the counter. There was more work to be done. Starting from the kitchen, she worked her way over every piece of furniture in their small apartment, looking, looking, looking. The couch where she used to watch old rom-coms with him. What were the chances he found someone else with exactly the same taste in movies as her? The oak counter on top of which sat a vinyl record player, a birthday present from her to him. Did the lipstick even know what kind of music he liked? The cramped wardrobe that held most of her dresses and all of his jeans. Did they ever laugh about her, endlessly rearranging the clothes in this wardrobe for some semblance of order? It never worked. Without fail it would fall into disarray mere days after an "extensive" spring-cleaning. 

 

After three hours of hard work she hadn't found anything else that belonged to this other woman. But her work in the forensics department had taught her that people left behind more than just material objects.

 

She stepped into the shower. Here was her favourite soap that made her skin soft and scented. And besides that, the Korean face wash that he had been kind enough to bring back for her on his last business trip. The frequent travelling made things hard, she realised. They had acknowledged that and tried to find a solution, but sometimes the apartment lay silent for days on end, while the sink in their bathroom slowly gathered dust, and the insects that she despised so much grew more confident and crawled out of the shower drain...

 

The drain. She had almost missed it. Kneeling down, she saw a knotted tangle of hairs: some brown like hers, some extremely long and jet-black. She strode out of the bathroom and retrieved the clear bag from the kitchen. Her hand reached to the tweezers on the shelf and then she walked slowly back into the shower. Gingerly, she dislodged the tangle from the drain and dropped it into the bag. There were a few strands that still stuck to the drain cover and she had to pick these up with her fingers. Her face scrunched up in protest, wishing she had been smart enough to grab some gloves from her laboratory. 

 

The job done, she washed her hands thoroughly under the water from the bathroom sink. The faucet was still leaking as she shut the tap off. She would have to fix that another day, she thought to herself. She had been meaning to since the start of the year. 

 

With the damning evidence clutched tightly in her right hand, she took one last look around the apartment. There was nothing else to suggest that another woman had ever been in here. She glanced at the knife drying in the cutlery rack. It looked good. No bloodstains. She had done a good job here.

 

She stuffed the clear bag with the lipstick and the hair into her backpack and walked out of the apartment. The key felt cool as ice in her hand as she locked the door. Her mind was clear and she felt strangely euphoric.

 

With any luck the body with 100% AQUA HYDRATION lips buried in the backyard of the building would go undiscovered, at least until her cheating boyfriend was back from Korea. And then, well, the body might get a companion. She would have to wait and see. A lot of it depended on if he had remembered to buy the correct face wash for her.