Chapter 1 - GET USED TO IT
Catherine Mercer knew something was wrong before Benjamin touched her keys.
She had been away for four days at a commercial-design conference in Atlanta and came home twenty hours early after the final client meeting was canceled. She expected the usual quiet Saturday afternoon in their Bethesda home.
Instead, there was an open black suitcase beside the front door.
Baby bottles covered the coffee table.
A folded stroller blocked the hallway.
A toddler sat on a blanket surrounded by wooden toys.
And Margot Hale—Benjamin’s “old family friend”—was sitting on Catherine’s cream-colored sofa holding a newborn against her chest.
Catherine stopped just inside the doorway.
Benjamin walked toward her.
He wore a gray sweater and the expression he used whenever he had made a decision and wanted Catherine to mistake it for a fact.
He took the keys from her hand and dropped them onto the console table.
“Margot and the kids are staying here, Catherine, so get used to it.”
Catherine looked at Margot.
Thirty-one.
Brown hair pulled back loosely.
No makeup.
Eyes red from lack of sleep.
She held the baby tighter and looked everywhere except at Catherine.
The toddler on the floor could not have been older than two.
Catherine glanced toward the kitchen.
Diapers.
Formula.
A bottle warmer.
A box of children’s medicine.
This was not an afternoon visit.
Someone had moved in.
“When did this happen?”
Benjamin exhaled.
“Don’t start.”
“I asked when.”
“Yesterday.”
“And you didn’t call me?”
“I knew you’d make it difficult.”
Catherine looked at Margot again.
Margot whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Benjamin turned sharply toward her.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
That sentence told Catherine more than anything else.
She walked toward the side table where she kept the property documents.
Benjamin moved first.
He grabbed her forearm and yanked her backward.
“This is my house too. You are not throwing my family out.”
Pain flashed through Catherine’s arm.
She looked down at his hand.
Then up at him.
“Take your hand off me.”
He held on one second too long.
Catherine tore herself free.
She removed the house key and the small brass safe key from her ring, placed both on the table, and opened the drawer beneath it.
Benjamin’s confidence flickered.
The navy property file was still there.
Catherine pulled it out.
“What are you doing?”
She pressed the folder against his chest.
“Wrong. This house was mine before you.”
Benjamin caught it automatically.
Margot began crying softly.
Not loudly.
Not like a woman frightened by an argument.
Like a woman watching a secret approach the surface.
Benjamin opened the file.
Original deed.
Closing statement.
Premarital property schedule.
Renovation records.
Catherine lifted her phone.
“And by tomorrow, both of you are gone.”
Benjamin lunged toward her.
The file slipped.
Loose papers scattered across the hardwood floor.
One stopped beside the toddler.
Margot’s name was printed across the top.
Catherine looked down.
Then at Margot.
Then at Benjamin.
Margot went white.
Benjamin stopped moving.
The page was not a property document.
May you like
It was a payment record.
And Catherine’s home-improvement account had been paying Margot Hale for fourteen months.
