I looked at the laptop again. The bank screen had dimmed. The confirmation button was still there, waiting like a trap.
“Grace,” I said slowly, “you have about ten seconds to explain why I shouldn’t call the police.”
“You probably should,” she said. “Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“Not before you look in your safe.”
My eyes shifted toward the hallway.
We had a safe in the back of the coat closet. Fireproof, heavy, bolted into the floor. Lucas kept passports there, insurance documents, property papers, birth certificates. I hadn’t opened it in months.
“What’s in my safe?”
“That depends on what he removed.”
I swallowed.
“Removed?”
“Lucas was at your house yesterday afternoon while you were at the dentist.”
I said nothing.
I had gone to the dentist at two. Lucas had told me he was at the office tying up loose ends before his so-called international transfer.
“He left with a folder,” Grace said. “Blue. Legal size.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was parked outside.”
The anger returned, but now it had nowhere clean to land.
“You were stalking my husband.”
“I was trying to understand what he was doing.”
“Why?”
“Because my sister is Melanie Harper.”
That name dropped between us like glass breaking.
For a few seconds, I could not speak.
I had imagined Melanie in fragments: the other woman, the smiling coworker in holiday party photos, the person Lucas texted too late at night, the woman who had taken what was mine. I had not imagined her having a sister. A family. Someone worried enough to follow her.
Grace exhaled shakily.
“Anne, I know what you found on his laptop. I know about the condo. I know about the pregnancy. But there are pieces you don’t have.”
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
“Is Melanie with him?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“She isn’t?”
“She thinks he’s in Zurich.”
I sat back down.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
The clock ticked on the wall.
Outside, a car passed slowly down the street, its engine fading into afternoon silence.
Finally, I said, “You need to start from the beginning.”
Grace gave a small, tired laugh.
