Chapter 2 - THE CALL FROM THE GARAGE
I did not invite Lena upstairs.
I did not confront Marcus in the lobby.
I gave her my phone number and told her not to warn him.
She nodded, though her hands shook so badly that she nearly dropped her phone again.
“I never would’ve—”
“I know.”
The words surprised both of us.
I did not know everything she had done.
I knew only that Marcus had lied to her too.
The taxi pulled away with Lena still inside.
I entered the building alone.
By the time the elevator reached the sixth floor, I had arranged my face into something neutral.
Marcus opened the apartment door before I used my key.
“There you are.”
He leaned forward to kiss me. I turned my wet cheek toward him.
“You’re soaked.”
“It’s raining.”
He smiled as though I had made a joke.
At forty-five, Marcus still possessed the charm that had once made crowded rooms feel intimate. His dark hair had begun graying near the temples, but the change only made him appear more trustworthy.
He wore navy pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
The same way he had dressed in Lena’s photograph.
“Long shift?” he asked.
“Fourteen hours.”
“You work too much.”
The words sounded affectionate.
They often did before he wanted something.
Sophie sat cross-legged on the living-room rug, building a model of the solar system for school. Foam planets and silver paint covered the coffee table.
“Mom!”
She ran toward me.
I held her longer than usual.
“You smell like rain,” she said.
“You smell like glue.”
“That’s because Saturn keeps falling apart.”
Marcus laughed from the kitchen.
“Your mother understands emergencies. Maybe she can save it.”
For the next half hour, I helped Sophie attach a ring around Saturn while Marcus warmed leftover pasta.
He appeared relaxed.
He asked about my patients.
He reminded Sophie to finish her reading.
He told me he had ordered groceries.
There was no visible sign that he had spent the previous year building another life.
At ten twenty-eight, he checked his watch.
Two minutes later, he picked up his phone.
“I have to call Singapore.”
“Tonight?”
“The markets do not take your schedule into account, Claire.”
It was a mild answer delivered with a patient smile.
The kind that made disagreement sound unreasonable.
He kissed Sophie’s hair and walked toward the entryway.
I waited thirty seconds.
Then I followed.
The elevator had already descended.
Instead of returning to the apartment, I entered the service stairwell and went down one floor. A small window overlooked the ramp leading into our underground garage.
Marcus stood beneath a fluorescent light beside our SUV.
He held the phone close to his ear.
I could not hear everything through the glass.
Only fragments.
“…she doesn’t suspect anything.”
A pause.
“No. The transfer is still scheduled for Friday.”
Another pause.
“I told you the paperwork protects you.”
He turned away.
His voice lowered.
“This is our way out.”
I stepped back before he could look up.
The affair was real.
But the conversation was not about love.
It was about a transfer.
When I returned to the apartment, Sophie had fallen asleep on the couch beside the unfinished planets.
I carried her to bed.
Marcus came upstairs ten minutes later.
“Singapore?” I asked.
He removed his watch.
“They’re nervous about the quarterly report.”
“Should I be nervous?”
He smiled.
“About commercial real estate in Southeast Asia?”
“About our finances.”
His hands stopped for less than a second.
Then he placed the watch in its wooden case.
“We’re fine.”
“You said last month that the firm had a temporary cash-flow problem.”
“Every firm has temporary cash-flow problems.”
“You asked me to sign documents for a home-equity line.”
“To create flexibility.”
“How much did we borrow?”
He looked at me.
“You signed the disclosure.”
“I signed it between surgeries. You told me it was two hundred thousand.”
“It was an authorization up to four hundred.”
The number landed quietly.
“Did we draw the full amount?”
“Not all of it.”
“How much?”
He loosened his collar.
“Claire, it is almost eleven. You are exhausted.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred forty thousand.”
“What did you do with it?”
His expression became sympathetic.
“You’ve had a difficult day.”
The shift was familiar.
Question the questioner.
Describe my concern as exhaustion.
Make calmness look like truth.
“I want to see the account,” I said.
“Tomorrow.”
“Now.”
Marcus moved past me toward the bathroom.
“We’re not having a financial interrogation because one bad night at the hospital made you anxious.”
The door closed.
I stood in our bedroom listening to the shower begin.
My phone vibrated.
Lena had sent a screenshot.
It showed an online banking notification from an account belonging to North Bridge Hospitality LLC.
Incoming transfer scheduled: $240,000.
The originating institution was our bank.
Beneath the image, Lena wrote:
Marcus created this company for the inn we’re supposed to buy together. He told me the money was his.
I looked toward the bathroom door.
On the other side, my husband was humming.
I typed one question.
Whose name is the company under?
May you like
Lena replied almost immediately.
Mine.
