Chapter 2
I looked toward the front hallway as though my husband might somehow be standing there.
“He left for work this morning.”
“I understand.”
“He’s been texting me from work.”
Daniel sounded genuinely embarrassed now.
“I’m sorry. I assumed you knew he had taken the day.”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because there are moments when reality becomes so absurd that your body reaches for the wrong reaction.
“He told me he’s staying late.”
Daniel said nothing.
That silence confirmed everything his words had not.
I thanked him.
I don’t know why.
People say strange things when their lives split in half.
Daniel apologized for disturbing me, told me he would deal with whatever he needed from Lucas on Monday, and ended the call.
I remained standing in the kitchen.
The phone stayed against my ear several seconds after the line went dead.
Then I lowered it.
Lucas’s message was still glowing on the counter.
Going to be stuck at the office late. Don’t wait for dinner.
Two things could not be true at once.
Lucas could not be buried at the office and absent from the office.
He could not be working late in a building he had never entered.
He could not be telling me the truth.
That realization should have made me furious.
Instead, at first, it made me afraid.
Lucas had left home that morning exactly the way he always did.
He had showered at six twenty.
I remembered hearing the water while I made coffee.
He shaved.
He put on his blue suit and the white shirt I had picked up from the cleaners two days earlier.
He stood in the bedroom fastening his watch while telling me something about a quarterly review.
He ate half a piece of toast.
He picked up his laptop bag.
At 7:36, he kissed me beside the front door.
“Dinner tonight?”
I had asked.
“Absolutely.”
“What time?”
“Seven?”
“You promise?”
He smiled.
“I promise.”
Then he walked out.
Nothing about him had seemed rushed.
Nothing had seemed nervous.
Nothing had seemed wrong.
That was the part that frightened me most.
If Lucas had suddenly changed plans after reaching the office, I could have imagined almost anything.
An emergency.
A friend in trouble.
A doctor’s appointment.
A family problem.
Something private.
Something embarrassing.
Something he meant to explain later.
But Daniel had said Lucas called before eight.
Lucas knew before leaving our house that he was not going to work.