Sophie and I sat in the gas station parking lot watching people come and go—commuters buying coffee, a man cleaning his windshield, a teenager pumping gas while laughing at something on his phone. Normal life, moving around us like we weren’t sitting in the middle of a possible murder plot.
My mind kept replaying the same question: how could I have lived with Margaret for thirty-five years and not known?
Sophie’s thumb rubbed back and forth over my knuckle like she was trying to soothe me the way I used to soothe her when she was small. That tiny motion nearly broke me.
The phone rang.
Marcus didn’t waste time with greetings.
“Your wife didn’t get on that plane,” he said.
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“She checked in, went through security,” Marcus continued, voice clipped, “but there’s no record of her boarding. I’ve got a contact at the airport. She was seen leaving through a service exit about twenty minutes after you dropped her off.”
Cold spread through my chest like ink in water.
“She’s still in Vancouver,” I whispered.