“How long before you met him?”
“About a month.”
“Did you tell me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew you’d react like this.”
I almost asked what “like this” meant.
Then stopped.
“When did you start sleeping with him?”
Her eyes rose.
“I never said—”
“Melissa.”
She looked down.
“Three months ago.”
There it was.
No more hotel mystery.
No more alternate explanations.
Three months.
I sat opposite her.
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know.”
“Five.”
I breathed in.
Slowly.
“Five hotel meetings?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Drinks.”
“Dinner.”
“His apartment once.”
I stared at the woman I had slept beside every night that week.
“You came home from his apartment and got into bed with me.”
She began crying.
“I know.”
“Was tonight another meeting?”
No answer.
“Melissa.”
“Yes.”
That was why she had returned so quickly.
She had been driving toward Adrian.
The photograph told her the secret was over before she reached him.
“What were you planning?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know!”
Her voice rose for the first time.
“I wasn’t planning some whole second life.”
“You have a secret email account and hotel schedule.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“What is the account for?”
She froze.
I watched her carefully.
“MeliHart27.”
Her face changed again.
“How did you find that?”
“So it is yours.”
She stood.
“You had no right to access my email.”
“I didn’t.”
She stopped.
“I know the address exists.”
“I’ve never opened the account.”
“You can keep the password.”
She stared at me.
That seemed to unsettle her more.
She had prepared for accusations of spying.
Not for evidence gathered without needing to break into anything.
I continued.
“What do you use it for?”
“Private things.”
“Adrian?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since he contacted me.”
I nodded.
“Did your mother know?”
Melissa’s expression hardened immediately.
“My mother has nothing to do with this.”
“She witnessed your marriage.”
Melissa stood perfectly still.
That was when I knew Elaine’s phone call contained more than guilt about old history.
“What did she know?”
“James.”
“What did Elaine know?”
“Leave her out of it.”
“She called me crying three weeks ago and said she was sorry.”
Melissa’s hand went to her forehead.
“Oh, God.”