Chapter 2 - THE SIXTEENTH DAYI read Angela's message five times.
Because David wasn't supposed to come home yet.
My first thought was simple.
She was lying.
My second was worse.
She was frightened.
Angela had never been good at hiding fear. Even through text, I could feel it in the clipped sentence, the missing punctuation, the way she had stopped demanding that I call.
I typed:
What does that mean?
No response.
I called.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
I walked through my own house as though I had entered it for the first time.
David's suitcase sat beside the stairs.
He had arrived home twenty-one minutes earlier and abandoned it without carrying it upstairs.
That was unusual.
David unpacked immediately after trips.
Always.
He hated dirty laundry sitting around.
I stared at the suitcase.
Then at the driveway.
His car was gone.
Mine wasn't.
I told myself not to touch his belongings.
Then I laughed.
My husband had apparently spent fifteen days sleeping with my best friend.
I had officially graduated beyond respecting the sacred privacy of his luggage.
I dragged the suitcase into the kitchen.
The combination was our anniversary.
It opened.
Shirts.
Socks.
Toiletries.
A gift-shop bag from a resort called Sonoran Crest.
A receipt showed two guests at a couples massage.
I placed it on the counter.
Under his running shoes was a sealed envelope.
No name.
Inside were photocopies of financial documents.
My financial documents.
A deed to the small commercial building my mother had left me.
The property sat on North High Street and housed three businesses: a bakery, a tailoring shop, and an insurance office.
It wasn't glamorous.
It was worth approximately $780,000.
More importantly, it belonged solely to me.
My mother had bought it before I was born and left it to me in her will.
Why did David have copies?
I kept searching.
At the bottom of the envelope was a business card.
JONATHAN PIKE
PRIVATE CAPITAL CONSULTING
PHOENIX, ARIZONA
On the back, handwritten:
Need Rebecca's signature OR POA. D says option B possible.
I stopped breathing.
POA.
Power of attorney.
David had asked me about one six months earlier.
He had framed it as basic estate planning.
"What if one of us ends up in the hospital?" he'd said.
I had agreed in principle.
But we'd never signed anything.
At least I hadn't.
My phone rang.
Angela.
I answered.
"Talk."
"Rebecca—"
"No. No crying. No excuses. Talk."
She inhaled shakily.
"Is David home?"
"He went to a clinic."
Silence.
"So you really told him?"
"Yes."
"You shouldn't have."
I almost screamed.
Instead, I lowered my voice.
"You spent fifteen days in Arizona with my husband, and your biggest concern is what I told him?"
"It isn't what you think."
"Did you sleep with him?"
Another silence.
That was enough.
I closed my eyes.
"How long?"
"Rebecca—"
"How long?"
"Seven months."
My legs weakened.
I gripped the counter.
Seven months.
Christmas.
My birthday.
Her birthday dinner.
The night David held me while I cried on the anniversary of my mother's death.
Seven months.
"Why did you say he wasn't supposed to come home?"
Angela started crying.
"Because we were supposed to stay until Tuesday."
"He told me Sunday."
"I know."
"Then why did he come home?"
"He found something."
"What?"
"I don't know exactly."
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"Angela, I am holding paperwork from his suitcase about my mother's property."
She stopped crying.
Completely.
"Rebecca, listen to me."
"What is Jonathan Pike?"
"Where did you see that name?"
"In David's bag."
"Oh God."
I heard movement on Angela's end.
A door closing.
"Rebecca, you need to photograph everything."
"I already am."
"And put it somewhere David can't access."
"What is happening?"
"I thought Arizona was about us."
The way she said us nearly made me hang up.
She hurried on.
"I know how disgusting that sounds. I know. But David told me he was leaving you."
"How original."
"He said the marriage had been over for years."
"He slept beside me every night."
"I know that now."
"You knew it then."
"I wanted to believe him."
"Congratulations."
"Rebecca, please listen. Three days into the trip, he met with Pike."
"For what?"
"He wouldn't tell me. Then he met him again. And again."
"Why were you there?"
"I wasn't invited to the meetings."
"You traveled across the country with a married man and suddenly developed professional boundaries?"
She deserved that.
Maybe worse.
Angela was quiet for several seconds.
Then she said, "On Friday night, David left the hotel. He thought I was asleep."
"And?"
"I followed him."
My anger gave way to something colder.
"He met Pike at another hotel. There was a woman with them."
"Who?"
"I don't know. Mid-fifties. Dark hair. Business suit."
"What did you hear?"
"Not much. They were in the lobby bar. I sat behind a partition."
"Angela."
"They were discussing a property. Your property, I think."
My fingers tightened around the phone.
"And?"
"The woman said they couldn't move forward without proof you had authorized it."
I looked down at the note.
signature OR POA.
"What did David say?"
Angela whispered, "He said authorization wouldn't be a problem."
The kitchen suddenly felt very still.
I had known David was a liar for approximately forty minutes.
I was beginning to wonder whether I had also married a criminal.
"Why didn't you call me?"
"I tried."
"You sent me photographs of smoothies."
"I know."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was terrified."
"Of David?"
Another pause.
"By then, yes."
That answer changed everything.
Angela continued.
"Friday night, he caught me outside the elevator. He knew I'd followed him."
"What did he do?"
"He grabbed my arm."
David had never hit me.
Never threatened me.
Never even punched a wall.
The David I knew avoided confrontation.
Or maybe the David I knew was a carefully maintained costume.
"He asked what I'd heard," Angela said. "I lied. Told him nothing."
"And he believed you?"
"No."
I heard something in her voice that made my anger briefly step aside.
"What happened?"
"He took my phone."
"What?"
"He kept it overnight. Returned it Saturday morning."
"Why?"
"I think he went through it."
"Did he hurt you?"
"No. Not exactly."
"Angela."
"He squeezed my arm hard enough to bruise it."
I stared at the kitchen wall.
Part of me wanted to say she had put herself there.
Part of me knew no betrayal justified violence.
"What happened Saturday?"
"We argued all day. I told him I wanted to leave."
"And?"
"He told me I couldn't."
"What do you mean, couldn't?"
"He had my passport."
"You're in Arizona. Why did you bring a passport?"
"Because he said we might drive into Mexico for a day."
Of course.
A romantic getaway.
I swallowed the bitterness.
"When did you last see him?"
"This morning. Around five."
"He came home at six forty-two tonight."
"Then he drove straight through."
"Why?"
"I woke up and he was gone. His suitcase was gone too."
"Did he leave a note?"
"No."
"And you stayed?"
"My flight is tomorrow."
I checked the clock.
7:39.
"Angela, photograph your bruises."
"Rebecca—"
"Do it."
"Okay."
"And send me everything you heard about my property."
"I will."
A garage-door sound made me freeze.
David.
His car rolled into the driveway.
"He's back."
Angela inhaled sharply.
"Don't tell him I talked to you."
"Why?"
"Because I think he's afraid of me."
"That makes two of us."
"Rebecca."
"What?"
Her next words came in a whisper.
"Check your home office before he does."
The line disconnected.
I looked toward the hallway.
My office was at the back of the house.
David had never used it.
My mother's papers, property records, tax documents and old family files were stored there.
The front door opened.
"Rebecca?"
I didn't answer.
I moved quickly down the hall.
Behind me, David called again.
"Rebecca!"
I reached the office.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Then I saw the small fireproof document safe beneath my desk.
The door was open.
I always locked it.
Inside should have been the original deed to the North High Street property.
It was gone.
So was my mother's death certificate.
And the folder containing samples of my signature from property leases.
Footsteps approached behind me.
I turned.
David stood in the doorway.
He was holding a white clinic envelope.
His eyes moved from me to the open safe.
Neither of us spoke.
Finally he said, "Why were you going through my suitcase?"
I almost laughed.
Instead, I stood.
"Why were you going through my safe?"
His expression changed.
Just slightly.
Enough.
Then he said something I will remember until the day I die.
"Rebecca, whatever Angela told you, she's trying to protect herself."
"From what?"
May you like
He shut the office door behind him.
And for the first time in eighteen years, I looked at my husband and wondered whether I should be afraid to be alone with him.
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