Chapter 8
He had spent the night with my best friend and now wanted etiquette.
Instead, I nodded toward the deli bag.
“Thanks for lunch.”
He stared at me.
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
I watched the frustration cross his face.
He had rehearsed this conversation.
I had refused to perform my lines.
Nathan stood.
At the door, he turned back.
“Are you coming home tonight?”
“Yes.”
He seemed surprised.
“Okay.”
Then he left.
I waited until his car had exited the parking lot before opening the deli bag.
Inside was my usual turkey sandwich.
And beneath it was a folded napkin.
Nothing was written on it.
I examined the bag anyway.
Maybe paranoia had finally arrived.
Or maybe I had learned that familiar gestures deserved to be inspected.
That evening, I drove home at 7:10.
Nathan had opened a bottle of wine.
He had also cooked pasta.
The house smelled like garlic and rosemary.
If you had looked through our dining-room window, you would have seen an ordinary married couple preparing dinner.
Nathan poured me a glass.
I didn’t drink it.
We ate mostly in silence.
Halfway through dinner, he said, “Brynn feels terrible.”
I put my fork down.
“She sent me a photograph with a joke about sharing my husband.”
“She was emotional.”
“So was the photographer, apparently.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
“Can we not do this?”
“We aren’t doing anything.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
I looked at him.
He seemed to realize what he had admitted.
“You expected me to react differently.”
“Anyone would.”
“Maybe.”
I picked up my fork again.
Nathan watched me for several seconds.
Then he asked, very casually, “Did you go into the office because of this?”
The question was wrong.
Not obviously wrong.
Just slightly too specific.
“I often work Saturdays.”
“I know.”
“Then why ask?”
“No reason.”
I smiled faintly.
“No reason seems popular this weekend.”
He stopped eating.
I finished dinner.
At 9:24, I went upstairs and took a shower.
When I came out, Nathan was sitting on the edge of the bed holding his phone.
“I’m going to sleep downstairs tonight.”
“Okay.”
That answer bothered him too.
He left.
At 10:06, Evan texted my secure phone.
“Active access.”
I sat on the bathroom floor and opened the monitoring dashboard.
The unidentified laptop was connected again.
This time, it wasn’t opening client files.
It was searching.
Terms appeared one after another.
“sale.”
“valuation.”
“investment.”
“ownership.”
“insurance.”
Then:
“postnuptial.”
I felt my pulse in my throat.
The user opened the scanned copy of the agreement Dana had drafted five years earlier.
They stayed in the file for eleven minutes.
Then downloaded it.
Nathan was downstairs.
I could hear the television.
If he was the person accessing the files, he was doing it from inside my house while pretending to watch basketball.
But there was another possibility.
Brynn could be connected remotely through a device Nathan had left active.
I texted Evan.
“Can we tell whether someone is physically using the laptop?”
“Not yet.”
“Can we force a camera?”
“No, and we’re not doing anything illegal.”
Good answer.
I stared at the screen.
The connection ended.
Three minutes later, Nathan walked upstairs.
He leaned against the bedroom doorway.
“Do you remember where we put the fireproof box key?”
There are moments when the world becomes so clear that it feels unreal.
I kept my face neutral.
“Why?”
“My passport.”
“Your passport isn’t in there.”
“I thought it was.”
“It’s in the drawer beside your desk.”
He nodded.
“Right.”
But he didn’t leave immediately.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
May you like
He walked away.
I waited five minutes.
