Chapter 2
Jason blinked.
“You’re signing?”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward.
“Just like that?”
I signed the second page.
Then the third.
His shoulders slowly relaxed.
He had prepared himself for screaming.
For bargaining.
For tears.
Instead, I gave him exactly what he said he wanted.
When I finished, I capped the pen.
“Then go be happy.”
Jason stared at me.
For the first time that afternoon, he looked uncertain.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
He stood slowly.
“I’m sorry.”
I almost smiled.
“No, you’re not.”
His face tightened.
I picked up my purse.
Jason glanced toward it.
He had no idea what was inside.
That was the first peaceful thought I had experienced in three weeks.
Because Jason believed this conversation was the beginning of my discovery.
It wasn’t.
It was the end of his.
Three weeks earlier, a woman named Andrea Collins had called my cell phone while I was standing in a Publix parking lot.
I almost ignored the number.
I was carrying two bags of groceries and trying to remember whether I had left chicken thawing on the counter.
I answered because I thought it might be a client.
“Michelle Whitaker?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Andrea Collins. You don’t know me.”
That sentence rarely leads anywhere good.
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry to contact you like this.”
I put the groceries in the trunk.
“What is this about?”
She hesitated.
“Kayla Reed.”
I stopped.
I knew the name.
Jason had mentioned her enough that I knew what account she managed, what coffee she drank, and that she apparently made “the funniest presentations in the office.”
But until Andrea said her name that afternoon, I had never attached danger to it.
“What about Kayla?”
Andrea exhaled.
“I’m her older sister.”
I said nothing.
“I think your husband is involved with her.”
The parking lot seemed suddenly too bright.
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t think it. I know.”
I looked at the shopping cart beside me.
A bag of oranges had tipped over.
One orange rolled slowly toward the curb.
I watched it instead of answering.
Andrea continued.
“I’ve been trying to decide whether to call you for two months.”
“Why now?”
“Because Kayla told our mother Jason is leaving you.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
I should have asked for proof.
I should have told her she was lying.
Instead, I asked the question my body already knew the answer to.