Chapter 5
After lying to Daniel, I didn’t sleep.
He left the basement at six the next morning. Before going upstairs, he checked the empty cabinet one more time.
I waited until the front door closed, then took the grocery receipt from my wallet.
18 Lake Hollow Road.
I knew the company could still make payroll. I knew his mother had never gone to the hospital. Now I needed to know where my money was going.
That evening, I drove to the lake.
The neighborhood was nearly an hour from the basement. The road narrowed until it became a private lane running along the water.
Number eighteen was a two-story house built from dark wood and stone. Lights glowed through the windows.
Daniel’s car was parked beside it.
So was Celeste’s white SUV. I recognized it from the company Christmas party.
I parked two houses away, silenced my phone, and slipped the receipt back into my coat pocket.
There was no gate blocking the stone path. As I approached the patio, I smelled grilled meat and heard men laughing.
No curtains covered the glass doors.
Celeste sat in front of the fireplace wearing a cream-colored dress. Daniel stood behind her, fastening a diamond necklace around her neck.
The stones caught the firelight.
A black jewelry box sat on the table. The gold lettering on the lid read Bellman Jewelers—the same store where I had sold my wedding ring.
Daniel finished fastening the necklace, but his hands stayed on Celeste’s shoulders. She turned toward him and said something I couldn’t hear.
He leaned down and kissed her.
I gripped my phone until my fingers hurt.
On the morning I sold my ring, the store paid me nine thousand dollars.
That same afternoon, Daniel spent eighty-six hundred there on Celeste.
I had believed my ring was paying his employees. I had believed it was buying us time to save our home and our marriage.
Celeste touched the necklace at her throat. She hadn’t given up anything.
Three men sat at the other end of the patio. Daniel’s old friend Marcus raised his glass.
“She really gave you the last five hundred?”
Daniel walked to the bar and poured himself a drink.
“Every dollar.”
The men laughed.
Marcus shook his head. “I said she’d hide some of it. I owe you a hundred.”
Daniel lifted his glass. “Nora wouldn’t. She’d only ask if it was enough.”
I started recording.
The picture shook, so I braced my shoulder against the outside wall and aimed the camera through the glass.
Celeste adjusted the necklace.
“What about the cottage?” she asked. “The one her mother left her?”
“She hasn’t signed yet.”
“She’s asking questions about the company accounts.”
“Asking isn’t the same as refusing.”
Celeste watched him for a moment. “Once she gives you the cottage, is the test over?”
Daniel took a drink.
“When she has nothing left, I’ll know she stayed because she loves me.”
I covered my mouth.
Tears fell onto my screen, blurring Daniel’s face. I wiped them away with my sleeve and kept recording.
Marcus no longer looked amused. He turned his glass between his hands.
“Have you thought about what happens if she finds out?”
“She won’t,” Daniel said. “And even if she does, she has nowhere else to go.”
The words reached me through the glass.
I stepped backward.
A dry branch snapped beneath my shoe.
The patio’s motion light came on.
Everyone inside turned toward me.
Daniel saw the phone first. Then he looked at my face.
His hand was still resting on the back of Celeste’s chair.
I turned toward my car as the lock clicked behind me.
Daniel pushed open the glass door.
He didn’t ask why I was crying. He didn’t explain why Celeste was wearing the necklace.
He only looked at the phone in my hand.
“Delete the video,” he said. “Then we can go back to the basement and keep being husband and wife.”