"Love you," I told her.
"Love you too." She kissed my cheek, took her bag, and left before I thought to ask which client was taking her to dinner.
I heated soup from the refrigerator and ate standing at the kitchen counter, reading a message from my business partner, Malik Torres. We had built Lawson & Torres Restoration twelve years earlier with a borrowed truck, two used ladders, and a willingness to take jobs other contractors considered too troublesome. Now we employed fourteen people and specialized in careful repairs to old brick buildings, historic windows, and the hidden structures nobody noticed until they began to fail. Most days I loved the work. On difficult days I wondered whether my marriage had been quietly paying for the hours I spent doing it.
At 8:36 p.m., my phone vibrated beside the sink. The number was unfamiliar, and for a second I assumed it was a supplier. Then I read the message.
Is your wife with Colin Mercer tonight?
I read it again. I checked the number, looking for a contact I might have forgotten. The message did not say hello, did not identify the sender, did not include the cautious introduction a stranger would normally offer before stepping into a marriage with a question like that.
I typed, Who is this?
The reply arrived almost immediately. My name is Nora Mercer. I'm Colin's wife. I wouldn't contact you if I weren't certain something was wrong. Please call me when you can speak privately.
I looked at Sabrina's coffee mug, still in the sink from that morning, and thought of all the stupid explanations I wanted to believe. It was a prank. Someone at the firm was angry. Somebody had misunderstood a hotel booking. A woman going through a difficult marriage had imagined a connection that did not exist. I carried my phone into the living room and called the number before any of those explanations could settle into certainty.
"Mr. Lawson?" a woman answered. Her voice was steady in the way a person sounds when steadiness is the only thing she has left to hold.
"Reid. Please call me Reid. How did you get my number?"
"Your company website lists a business number. Your office answering service gave me the mobile number for urgent calls when I said it involved a personal matter." She paused. "I understand how strange that sounds. I'm sorry."
My first impulse was to ask her not to apologize, but I could not get the words out. "What makes you think Sabrina is with your husband?"
"He told me he was driving to Wilmington for a client dinner. Yesterday he told me he had to stay in Harrisburg overnight. Two different stories about where he was supposed to be tonight." Nora took a breath.
"This afternoon I found a hotel confirmation in a stack of travel paperwork he'd left beside our printer. It wasn't a reservation in Delaware. It was for a hotel near Rittenhouse Square. Room 1012."