Then I heard it again. A woman’s laugh. High and clear.
My key was still in the side door. I’d been halfway to the airport when my stomach dropped. My passport. Sitting on the desk in our study.
I was supposed to be on a plane. Four days of quiet. Twenty-two years of marriage had earned me that. He’d agreed so easily. Too easily.
Now I stood in my own hallway, a ghost in my own home.
Every step up the main staircase was a choice. My hand on the banister was white-knuckled. My breathing was a thin thread in my throat.
The door to our bedroom was cracked open. Just a sliver of light spilling out.
I saw candles. I saw a champagne bottle.
I saw my husband, Mark, sitting on the edge of our bed, his back to me.
He wasn’t alone.
A woman stood near the window, wearing my robe. The silk one. The one he bought me on that trip, from that little shop we both loved.
Her voice was a soft poison. “She’s gone, right?”
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I was a statue carved from ice.