Chương 8
“Emily.”
“For what?”
He glanced toward the hallway.
“No one else is here.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He looked at the empty drawer again.
“It has old contact information.”
“Mine.”
“Ours.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“We were married.”
“We are married.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean, which is why I keep correcting you.”
He took a breath through his nose.
“I used some of those contacts.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“Jesus Christ.”
He kicked an empty file box aside.
It struck the desk leg and collapsed.
For a strange second, we both looked at it.
Then Ethan said, “Do you have any idea what will happen if investors start questioning the legitimacy of every relationship around the company?”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I spent ten years advising companies through worse.”
“You advised from the outside.”
“And you think that made me stupid?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’ve been saying it for five years.”
He stared at me.
The fear in his face shifted into anger.
“Why are you doing this now?”
I could not believe the question.
“Because I found you with Vanessa.”
“That’s personal.”
I went still.
He heard it too late.
He closed his eyes.
“That came out wrong.”
“No, I think it came out perfectly.”
“I mean the company is separate.”
“Not if you used my name.”
“Your name was never material.”
“Then why do you need the drive?”
He stopped.
There it was.
A tiny fracture in his certainty.
I stepped into the room.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ever take it?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
I watched him.
He looked back without blinking.
Years ago, that would have convinced me.
Now it only made me wonder how long he had practiced.
“Who knew it existed?”
“You.”
“You.”
He looked away.
“Maybe Daniel.”
My shoulders tightened.
“Why would Daniel know where I kept an encrypted drive in our house?”
“He knew you kept records.”
“Everyone knew I kept records.”
“Exactly.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Ethan walked toward the desk.
“Maybe you misplaced it.”
“I didn’t.”
“You haven’t opened that cabinet in years.”
“How would you know?”
His hand froze above the desk.
He turned.
I said, “How would you know I haven’t opened it?”
“I live here.”
“So do I.”
“You know what I mean.”
Again.
That phrase had become a trapdoor he kept trying to drop beneath my feet.
I looked at the cabinet lock.
No scratches.
No forced entry.
The small brass key normally sat inside a ceramic bowl in the upstairs linen closet, behind extra batteries and the little sewing kit I never used.
I had not checked the bowl yet.
“Where’s the key?”
“What key?”
“The filing cabinet key.”
“I don’t know.”
“You opened it.”
“It was unlocked.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
His face changed by almost nothing.
A blink.
A faint tightening at the corner of his mouth.
But I knew him.
I had watched him bluff through investor meetings when we could barely cover payroll.
“Where is the key, Ethan?”
“I told you, it was unlocked.”
I turned and walked upstairs.
He followed immediately.
“Where are you going?”
I did not answer.
At the linen closet, I pulled out the ceramic bowl.
Batteries.
Two safety pins.
A foreign coin from a trip to Montreal.
No key.
I held the bowl toward him.
“You took it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then where is it?”
“How would I know?”
“You were just in the cabinet.”
“It was open.”
“You expect me to believe someone stole the drive and kindly left the cabinet unlocked for you?”
His voice rose.
“I don’t know what happened.”
I set the bowl on the shelf.
“Did Vanessa know about the drive?”
His expression hardened.
“Don’t drag her into this.”
I stared at him.
He seemed to understand the absurdity of what he had said, but pride kept him from correcting it.
“I am going to ask you one question,” I said.
“If you lie, I’m going to know.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“Did Vanessa ever have access to our house?”
“No.”
I waited.
He looked toward the stairs.
“Not alone.”
My stomach dropped.
“When?”
“Emily.”
“When?”
“A few times.”
“You brought her here?”
“For work.”
I laughed once.
“You brought your secretary into our home for work.”
“She’s my executive assistant.”
“She was sitting on your lap yesterday.”
“That doesn’t mean every interaction we ever had was sexual.”
“Please keep defending the boundaries of your affair.”
He flinched.
Good.
I hated myself slightly for enjoying it.
“When was she here?”
“A couple of months ago.”
“More than once?”
He did not answer.
I stepped closer.
“Was she ever in this house when I wasn’t here?”
“Yes.”
The hallway seemed to narrow.
“What room?”
“Mostly the kitchen.”
“Mostly.”
“We worked at the table.”
“Anything else?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember.”
“I was working.”
“Where?”
“Sometimes downstairs.”
“In the office?”
His silence answered me.
I looked back toward the staircase.
Something inside my chest felt cold.
Not jealousy.
Something worse.
Contamination.
My home had contained an entire layer of life I had not known existed.
“Did she know about the cabinet?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she ever see you open it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you open it while she was here?”
His face tightened.
“I may have.”
“Why?”
“I needed old information.”
The words arrived too late to stop themselves.
I turned back.
“What old information?”
He swore quietly.
“Ethan.”
“Client histories.”
“Mine.”
“Potential prospects.”
“Mine.”
“We were building a company.”
“You were building your company.”
“Our company paid for this house.”
“My contacts helped finance your company.”
“You’re going to reduce everything I did to a phone book now?”
I stared at him.
“No.”
His shoulders dropped slightly.
Then I said, “I’m going to reduce what you did to whatever the evidence supports.”
May you like
His face went white.
That was the first moment I knew the missing drive frightened him for reasons beyond embarrassment.
