I leaned against the wall beside the fireplace. "A hotel confirmation doesn't mean—"
"I know." She said it quickly, almost gratefully. "That's why I checked before calling you. The paperwork was under an Ellison & Pike corporate travel account."
"I know your wife works there. I know Colin has been telling me he's with her team. And I found a photograph of them from a company dinner last month. He told me he hadn't seen her outside the office since spring."
"People lie about small things," I said, then heard how foolish that sounded. "Or they forget."
"Yes," Nora replied. "That's what I kept telling myself. But the hotel confirmation is for tonight, and Colin left the house carrying a change of clothes. His wedding ring was on the bathroom counter when he went out. He never takes it off, Reid."
I looked down at my own ring. A faint line of plaster dust was caught beneath it from the jobsite. I had been planning to clean it after dinner. Suddenly it seemed unbearable that such an ordinary thing could remain ordinary while the rest of my life changed shape.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
"I want to know whether we're being lied to." Nora's voice caught on the last word. "If there's an innocent explanation, I will be relieved. I swear I will. But I don't know how to find it by sitting in my kitchen waiting for another story."
I could hear a clock ticking behind her and a low sound that might have been a refrigerator motor. She had a home somewhere, I realized, and an evening that had been ordinary until it wasn't. She was not a detective in a movie or an enemy arriving to destroy my marriage. She was a woman frightened enough to call a stranger because the alternative was another night of pretending not to notice.
"I'm going to the hotel," I said.
"So am I. I'll be there in twenty minutes. The lobby has a brass lamp beside the front desk. We can meet there."
I did not answer right away. Somewhere in the house, the old radiator clicked as it warmed. On the refrigerator was a grocery list Sabrina had written the day before: milk, blueberries, coffee, dish soap. I stared at that list until the handwriting stopped looking familiar. Then I told Nora I would meet her and ended the call.
The drive south took twenty-five minutes in traffic. Philadelphia was damp from a light evening rain, the pavement reflecting traffic signals in long red and gold ribbons. I passed restaurants where couples leaned across small tables and laughed into their glasses. At a red light on Broad Street, I almost called Sabrina. I wanted to hear her voice, ask where she was, offer her the chance to tell the truth before I saw whatever I was going to see.
I did call. She answered on the fifth ring, with music and voices in the background. "Hey, honey. Everything okay?"