Chapter 1 - DO NOT GO HOME
The state trooper slammed my car door before I could get back inside.
Not angrily.
Deliberately.
One hand stayed flat against the door while red and blue lights flashed across the wet pavement behind us.
“Do not go home with your wife tonight.”
For a second, I thought I had misheard him.
“What?”
His eyes flicked toward the passenger window.
Laura was sitting inside.
My wife of eleven years.
Gray sweater.
Hair tied loosely behind her neck.
Both hands folded in her lap.
She looked exactly the way she always looked when somebody else was upset.
Calm.
Watchful.
The trooper lowered his voice.
“Don’t react.”
I stopped breathing normally.
“What are you talking about?”
He shifted his body so Laura could not see his hands.
Then pressed a folded photograph into my palm.
“Put this away.”
I opened it an inch.
Enough to see Laura.
She was standing beside a dark SUV at what looked like a motel or roadside parking lot.
A man stood beside her.
I had never seen him before.
Laura was handing him something.
The image had obviously been taken from far away.
I looked toward the car.
Laura was already watching me.
The trooper folded my fingers over the photograph.
“Not here.”
Then he slipped me a small card.
Cheap.
The kind sold with prepaid phones.
One handwritten number.
“Call when you’re alone.”
My mouth had gone dry.
“Who are you?”
“Trooper Ellis.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Laura lowered her window.
“Michael?”
Ellis stepped away from me.
His entire manner changed.
Professional.
Routine.
“Your left brake light is out, ma’am. I’m issuing a warning.”
Laura smiled politely.
“Thank you.”
I got back into the driver’s seat.
She looked at me.
“What did he give you?”
“Warning paperwork.”
“He put something in your hand.”
I started the car.
“He was showing me something.”
“What?”
“Brake-light diagram.”
It was a terrible lie.
Laura knew it.
I knew she knew it.
For eleven years, we had rarely lied to each other about anything important.
At least that was what I believed then.
We drove twelve miles in silence.
The sky was low and gray.
Brown fields on both sides of the highway.
Every time I looked in the mirror, I expected the cruiser to still be behind us.
It wasn’t.
At the next gas station, I pulled in.
“Bathroom.”
Laura looked at me.
“You okay?”
“Coffee.”
“You don’t drink gas-station coffee.”
“I do today.”
She studied me for another second.
Then nodded.
“Okay.”
The bathroom was single occupancy.
I locked the door.
Pulled out the photograph.
Opened it fully.
Laura.
The unknown man.
A black pickup with temporary tags.
A warehouse sign blurred in the background.
There was a date printed in one corner from three weeks earlier.
A Tuesday.
I remembered that Tuesday.
Laura told me she had driven her mother to a cardiology appointment.
I took out the card.
Dialed.
Someone answered after half a ring.
“Is Laura with you?”
A woman’s voice.
Controlled.
No introduction.
I looked at the locked door.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
A shadow appeared beneath the door.
I froze.
The woman on the phone said:
“Your wife has been under surveillance for eight months.”
I stopped hearing the fluorescent light buzz overhead.
“Why?”
“Michael?”
Laura’s voice came from the hallway.
The doorknob turned slowly.
The person on the phone said:
“Do not tell her you spoke to us.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Who is us?”
“Michael?”
The knob turned again.
Laura sounded closer.
“Are you sick?”
I stared at her shadow beneath the door.
The woman whispered:
“Ask yourself one question before you go home.”
“What?”
“How much of your wife’s life do you actually know?”
Then the line went dead.
May you like
I stood there holding a surveillance photograph of the woman I had slept beside for eleven years.
And for the first time in our marriage, I realized calm and safety were not necessarily the same thing.
