Chapter 1
I had been traveling for two weeks, and I barely made it through the office doors before the receptionist handed me a gold embossed invitation.
The sender was Emily Lane, one of the assistants at the firm.
The card read: [You are cordially invited to celebrate the marriage of Emily Lane and Edward Grant.]
I stood there with a single thought turning over in my head. Edward Grant was my husband.
I dug out my phone and called him.
"So you're getting married?" I asked.
He let three seconds of silence go by before he answered. "Where are you?"
He offered no explanation and no denial, only a question about where I was.
I smiled, slid the invitation under the glass on his desk, and walked out.
He wanted to know where I was. I wanted to know how he planned to explain that card.
*****
My flight landed after two weeks on the road.
I turned my phone back on and found nothing from Edward.
I didn't think much of it.
He was busy, and I had gotten used to it.
The car dropped me at the office, and I wheeled my suitcase through the front doors.
The young receptionist spotted me and let her eyes slide away.
She pulled a card from the drawer.
It was an invitation, the lettering across the front stamped in gold.
She handed it to me.
"Ms. Sinclair, this one is for you," she said.
I took it, and my fingertips ran along the edge of the stiff cardstock.
The sender line read: [Emily Lane.]
My brow furrowed.
Emily Lane was Edward's assistant.
I opened the invitation.
[You are cordially invited to celebrate the marriage of Emily Lane and Edward Grant.]
Edward Grant was my husband.
I stood frozen.
People kept crossing the lobby around me, and every sound reached me like it had traveled through water first.
Only one thought stayed in my head.
Edward was getting married, and the bride was not me.
I pulled out my phone.
I found his number and pressed call.
The line rang once, then again, then a third time.
Then the call connected.
The other end was quiet.
I kept my voice steady when I spoke.
"You're getting married?"
He said nothing.
One second went by, then two, then three.
He offered no explanation.
He didn't even try to deny it.
He asked, "Where are you?"
I let out a quiet, bitter laugh.
The sound pushed up out of my chest and came out thin and dry.
He was asking me where I was.
Another woman had his wedding date, and my whereabouts were the thing on his mind.
Somehow my two weeks away had become the real problem.
"At the office," I said.
Then I hung up.
The gold lettering caught the light when I looked down at the card in my hand.
I pulled my suitcase into the elevator.
I pressed the button for his floor.
The doors slid open. His office area was silent.
I crossed to his oversized mahogany desk.
Files sat stacked in high piles across it.
I lifted one corner of the glass top.
I slid the invitation underneath and smoothed it flat.
He would see it the moment he looked down.
I turned and walked away.
He wanted to know where I was.
I wanted to know how he planned to explain that card.
There was no reason to go back to my own apartment.
I told the driver to take me to Summit Villas.
That was where Edward and I lived.
The car stopped at the gate.
I punched in the code.
The panel flashed an error.
I entered it again.
The same error came back.
I studied the keypad, which had been wiped so clean that not a single fingerprint showed.
Someone had changed the code.
I took out my phone and opened the lock app.
The house was in my name, which gave me full control.
I reset the code.
The gate swung open.
The entryway was spotless.
My slippers were gone.
A pink pair sat in their place.
They were not my size.
A perfume I did not recognize hung in the air, sweet enough to coat the back of my throat.
Someone's wrap lay draped over the arm of the living room couch.
On the coffee table sat a half finished latte.
A faint lipstick print marked the rim.
I walked over.
Every trace of me in that house was being wiped away, quietly, one piece at a time.
I climbed the stairs one step at a time.
At the end of the hall, I stopped outside the master bedroom.
My hand found the knob and turned it slowly.