“I cleared tomorrow morning,” he said. “Thought maybe we could spend it together. Look at nursery stuff. Get breakfast. Just us.”
I was sitting in the rocking chair in the nursery folding tiny cotton sleepers. My fingers went still around a pink cuff.
Nathan did not clear mornings. Nathan protected billable hours the way dragons protect gold.
“That sounds nice,” I said.
The second we hung up, I opened my banking app.
At first, I didn’t see it. Then I switched to joint-account transactions and there it was, sitting three days back like a lit match in dry grass.
Douglas Wright Investigative Services — $200.
I closed my eyes so hard stars burst behind them.
I had paid one invoice from the joint account during a transfer week. One. I had meant to move it and never did. Nathan, or someone in his office, had seen it.
He might not know what I knew.
But he knew enough to suspect I was looking.
I called Sandra. She answered on the fourth ring, voice crisp.
“He saw the investigator charge,” I said. “He called tonight and suddenly wants to spend tomorrow morning with me.”
A pause.
Then: “We move faster.”