The next morning, Nathan left for work in a navy overcoat and kissed the top of my head while I stood at the stove pretending to scramble eggs.
“You okay?” he asked. “You seem tired.”
I looked at his reflection in the microwave door. Crisp shirt. Smooth jaw. Not a crease out of place.
“Just not sleeping great.”
He touched my shoulder. “We’re almost there.”
We.
After he left, I stood in the kitchen until I heard the garage door close.
Then I took my plate to the sink, dumped the eggs into the trash, and opened my laptop.
Doug’s new email was already there.
Her name is Brooke Kensington.
And underneath that, attached like a blade wrapped in velvet, was a full report.
By the time I finished reading, the house around me looked the same.
White cabinets. Morning light. Bowl of lemons on the island. Baby monitor still in the box.
But I wasn’t the same woman standing in it.
Because now I had a name, a face, a hotel, a pattern, and a necklace he had bought with the kind of confidence only a man certain of his own safety ever has.
What I didn’t know yet was how much more there was to find.
And how ugly men can get when they realize you’re not crying anymore.
Part 3
Sandra Mercer’s office was on the fourteenth floor of a brick building in downtown Stamford, and everything in it looked chosen on purpose.
Not flashy. Not soft either. Dark wood shelves. A slate-gray rug. Clean lines. A glass bowl of peppermints nobody touched. The kind of office that made you think the person behind the desk did not need to raise her voice to ruin your week.
Sandra was in her mid-fifties, silver-haired, beautifully put together, and had the steady gaze of someone who had spent two decades listening to people lie for sport.
I brought her three folders.
One for the affair. One for the timeline. One for the money.
She read in silence while I sat across from her and watched a square of winter light move slowly across her desk. My back ached. The baby had parked herself high under my ribs that week, and every breath felt slightly borrowed.
Sandra finished the third folder, closed it, and looked up.
“Mrs. Callaway,” she said, “most people come in here with intuition and tears. You came in with exhibits.”
“I used to do this for a living.”
“I can tell.”