Chapter 2
I was still wearing my gala dress when Daniel came home.
I had taken off my shoes, but not the earrings he once told me made me look like I belonged beside him at these events.
The dining room light was on.
He stopped when he saw me at the table.
"You're still awake."
"Why did you say that about me?"
Daniel set his keys down.
"Say what?"
"That I was lucky not to work."
"That I turn every business decision into a feeling."
He loosened his tie but did not sit.
"You challenged me in front of board members and donors."
"You asked me to look at the Westhaven figures."
"I asked for context."
"I did not ask you to turn dinner into a debate about whether I care about tenants."
"I asked why the moving money was missing."
"And I answered you."
"You laughed at me."
For a moment, I thought he might say he was sorry.
Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket.
"There is something I need to ask you first."
He put his phone on the table.
I noticed that he had already opened the photo album before he walked through the door.
There was no hesitation in him now.
No surprise that needed time to become a question.
The screen showed the entrance of the Briar Hotel.
A woman in a dark coat walked beside a man I did not recognize.
Her face was blurred.
From a distance, she could have been me.
Daniel swiped to the next image.
The same man stood near a woman in the hotel lobby.
"Is there something you want to tell me?"
"That isn't me."
"Were you at the Briar Hotel this week?"
"No."
"With anyone you have not told me about?"
"No."
He asked each question as if he were being careful with me.
I knew that tone.
It was the one he used when he wanted other people to think he had been reasonable long after he had made up his mind.
"The coat looks like yours."
"It is a black coat."
I looked at him.
"Who sent these?"
He picked up the phone before I could enlarge either picture.
"When did you get them?"
"It does not matter."
"Did you have them at the gala?"
His eyes shifted away from mine for the first time.
"Do not change the subject."
I had left the ballroom believing we were going to argue about what he had said to me.
Now I could not tell whether he had arrived there already carrying a reason to make that argument disappear.
Daniel's voice stayed even.
"That is not the point."
"Then what is?"
"I am giving you a chance to explain."
"Explain a photograph you will not let me see?"
Daniel did not answer.
I unlocked my own phone and held it out to him.
"Read anything you want."
"My messages."
"My calendar."
"Call anyone."
He looked at the lit screen.
He did not take it.
"Show me the date it was taken," I said.
"I want to check where I was that day."
"You need the date before you can answer?" he asked.
The question made no sense until I understood what he wanted from it.
Not an answer.
A pause he could call guilt.
"I need the date because I was not there," I said.
"Let me see the pictures again."
"You saw them."
"Send them to me."
"No."
He placed his phone back in his pocket.
"I was hoping you would tell me before I had to ask."
My unlocked phone remained on the table between us.
Daniel left it there.