Chapter 1 - ROOM 607
Jessi Marino found the motel receipt because Luca never remembered to empty his pockets.
She was standing beside the washing machine in their suburban New York home, turning his gray jacket inside out before loading a week’s worth of clothes, when a crumpled piece of paper fell onto the laundry-room floor. She nearly threw it away without looking. Then she saw the words THE BLUE ORCHID MOTEL printed across the top.
Room 607. Check-in at 12:36 p.m. Check-out at 2:21 p.m. Two-hour stay.
Luca had told her he spent that afternoon in a meeting with a construction supplier in White Plains. He even called at one-thirty to complain about the supplier’s prices and ask whether Jessi remembered to buy his mother’s favorite coffee. She remembered the call because she had been sitting at her desk, trying to finish payroll reports while quietly wondering when her marriage had become a series of reminders and obligations.
Wendy was in the kitchen when Jessi walked in. Luca’s sixty-one-year-old mother had come over to help prepare dinner, something she did most Saturdays despite Jessi repeatedly telling her she did not need help. Wendy was loud, opinionated and inclined to consider every problem an emergency until proven otherwise, but she had never pretended to be anything else.
Jessi slammed the receipt onto the kitchen table.
Wendy picked it up. Her expression changed before she finished reading.
“He told us he was in a meeting.”
“He told me the same thing.”
Wendy reached for her coat. “Get your keys.”
Twenty-five minutes later, they stood outside Room 607.
Jessi had called Luca twice during the drive. Both calls went unanswered. She could hear him now, speaking behind the motel door, followed by a woman’s laughter. The sound was intimate enough that Jessi stopped wondering whether there might be an innocent explanation.
Wendy raised her fist to knock.
Jessi moved first.
She threw her weight against the poorly fitted door. The latch gave way on the second impact, and the door swung inward hard enough to strike the wall.
Luca stood beside the bed, frantically pulling his shirt back over his shoulders.
“Jessi?!”
Wendy charged past her. “What the hell are you doing?”
The woman sitting on the bed turned away and covered her face with one hand. Her shoes were on the floor beside Luca’s gray jacket, and a half-empty bottle of water stood on the nightstand.
Jessi barely noticed any of it.
She noticed the bracelet.
A thin silver chain circled the woman’s wrist, with a tiny crescent-moon charm and a blue stone set into the center. Jessi had chosen that bracelet herself two Christmases earlier, after Chloe told her nobody in the family ever remembered her birthday without checking Facebook.
Jessi stepped around Wendy.
“Look at me.”
The woman lowered her hand.
Chloe.
Twenty-four-year-old Chloe, adopted daughter of Wendy’s younger brother Frank. The girl who had spent Christmases at their table, borrowed Jessi’s winter coats and once cried in Jessi’s kitchen because she felt like a guest in her own family.
“Jessi...” Chloe whispered.
Wendy was still shouting at Luca. She had not yet looked toward the bed.
Jessi grabbed her mother-in-law’s arm.
“We’re leaving.”
“Leaving? I haven’t even—”
“Now.”
Wendy stared at her, confused and furious, but Jessi pulled her into the hallway before she could turn around.
“Who was that woman?” Wendy demanded.
Jessi glanced back.
Chloe remained on the bed, staring at her with an expression caught somewhere between shame and panic.
Jessi gave her a contemptuous smile.
Then she closed the door.
Inside Room 607, Chloe began crying.
Wendy tried to pull free. “Jessi, tell me who she is!”
Jessi took out her phone and opened the camera.
“First,” she said, photographing the room number and the broken latch, “we’re going to find out why Luca left that receipt in his jacket.”
Wendy stopped talking.
Jessi looked down at the image.
She had caught Luca cheating.
But something about his reaction bothered her.
He had looked frightened when she entered.
May you like
Not surprised.
And the difference would matter much sooner than she expected.
