Chapter 5
The elevator doors at the end of the hall opened.
Russell came around the corner with his coat unbuttoned and his tie pulled loose. He saw me outside Apartment 3B, then saw Lacey in the doorway wearing my cardigan.
He stepped between us.
My call with Jolene was still connected. I slid the phone screen-first into my coat pocket before Russell noticed.
"Mallory," he said. "Go home."
"You took forty-eight thousand six hundred dollars from Northline to pay for this apartment."
Russell glanced toward the stairwell. "I approved the payment you put in front of me. If the wrong name was on it, that doesn't make me a thief."
"Last night, you said I added L.M. myself. Now you're saying you only approved what I gave you. Which story are you using?"
His fingers went to his tie.
"Five years," he said. "Every month ended with you crying and me pretending I wasn't allowed to grieve too. I wanted a child. I stopped believing you wanted anything except another chance to try."
"So you slept with the employee I trained?"
"I made a mistake. The baby didn't."
Behind him, Lacey pressed one hand to the doorframe. "Russell, I need to sit down."
He turned at once and guided her inside.
Yesterday, that hand had closed around mine in Dana's office and made me feel safe. Now he used it to guide Lacey away from me.
Lacey lowered herself onto the couch. "She came here angry," she said. "She wouldn't leave when I asked."
I looked at her. "You reached for the payment printout because you saw your address on it."
"You were shouting outside my home."
"I never raised my voice."
Russell stepped back into the hall and pulled the apartment door nearly closed behind him.
"There's a camera over the elevator," he said. "It shows you coming to a pregnant employee's home after being removed from the office."
"It also shows your truck downstairs."
"A husband checking on a frightened employee." His voice stayed calm. "That is what people will see."
My phone buzzed inside my coat. Dana had ordered me to her office at eight and warned me not to contact Lacey again.
I read it twice.
"What did she tell Dana?" I asked.
Russell showed me Lacey's email to Dana. It said I had followed her home, refused to leave, and threatened her unborn child.
"I never threatened her baby. Ever."
Jolene had heard every word from inside my pocket. I let Russell believe she had not.
I looked past Russell into the apartment. "Tell Dana what I actually said."
Lacey held the cardigan closed at her throat. "You said Russell would leave me with the rent."
"I said he was already changing his story."
Her eyes moved toward him.
"Enough," Russell said.
Lacey obeyed. She knew the complaint was false. She also knew the apartment, her job, and the promise on her finger all depended on keeping Russell pleased.
"You showed up at her door after learning she was involved with your husband," Russell said. "Lacey and I will give Dana the same account."
"A lie told twice is still a lie."
"Not when your name is already attached to forty-eight thousand missing dollars."
The apartment door opened behind him. Lacey stood with both hands around her stomach. Her face had changed. The uncertainty was gone.
"I was afraid she might hurt the baby," she said.
Russell didn't look at her. He watched me absorb the sentence.
For thirteen years, Russell had turned every disaster into proof that he was the kind man in the room. Now he was doing it to me.
Now he had found mine.
He slipped his phone into his coat.
"Tomorrow morning, Dana won't be asking who I slept with," Russell said.
He closed the apartment door between us.
"She'll be asking what you did to my baby."