Chapter 3 - What Sophie Remembered
I stood in the garage holding the card longer than I want to admit.
The hotel name was printed clean across the front.
The Halston.
I knew it. About twenty-five minutes across town, near the interstate — a place with a steakhouse on the ground floor and a dim little bar where nobody looked up when you walked in.
I flipped the card. Nothing on the back but the magnetic strip.
I went inside and sat back down. The coffee was cold. I didn't care.
My phone was in my hand before I decided to pick it up. I opened Ethan's contact and looked at his name. Then I set the phone face-down on the table.
Not yet. I needed to think. I needed to know exactly what I was standing in before I said one word to him.
Sophie's feet came down the stairs. She appeared in the doorway in her pajamas, hair a mess, dragging her stuffed rabbit by the ear.
She smiled at me the way she does every morning — wide open, like the world was still exactly what she expected.
"Morning, Mommy."
"Morning, bug." I kept it level. "Come sit with me a minute."
She climbed into the chair beside mine and propped the rabbit against the napkin holder. I poured her a small glass of juice and watched her drink half of it.
"Did you have fun at Lily's?"
"Mm-hm. We played dolls and watched the one with the horses."
"That sounds nice." I let a beat pass. "Hey — anything happen before we left for Lily's? When you went out to Daddy's car?"
She looked up. "Like what?"
"When you got your jacket."
She thought about it the way kids do — honestly, with no idea the question had any weight.
"I couldn't find my jacket," she said. "So I looked in the big part in the back."
"The trunk?"
"Yeah. There was a bag in there." She picked up the rabbit and smoothed its ear. "A pink one. It smelled like perfume."
My chest pulled tight. "Did you open it?"
"A little. There were clothes." A small frown. "They weren't yours, Mommy. They were too small for you."
I made myself breathe. "How do you know they weren't mine?"
"There was a name on the bag. On the tag part. It said Kristen." She said it plainly, the way children say things they don't know are dangerous yet. "Who's Kristen?"
"Just someone Daddy used to work with," I said. "Old friend."
She nodded, satisfied, and went back to her juice.
I looked at the key card sitting beside my mug and turned it face-down before she could see it.
"Sophie. Did you tell Lily about the bag?"
A tiny hesitation. "A little bit."
"That's okay," I said. "You didn't do anything wrong."
And she hadn't. She was seven. She'd found something in a trunk and thought it was interesting, the way she'd think a dead beetle on the porch was interesting.
I waited until she went upstairs to get dressed. Then I did the thing I'd been putting off. I searched The Halston.
The site loaded fast. Marble lobby. The steakhouse. The bar. A phone number.
My thumb hovered over it.
Then I stopped, because I realized calling would only tell me whether he'd been there. It wouldn't tell me how long. It wouldn't tell me whether Kristen was the only name I needed to learn. It wouldn't tell me what Ethan was actually planning.
I needed more than a key card and a pink bag.
I needed his phone.
He always left it charging in the kitchen overnight. But this morning he'd slid it off the counter and into his jacket without looking at me, and walked out.
Had he done that before? I couldn't remember. That scared me more than it should have.
I went upstairs and stood in our bedroom doorway. Everything looked normal. Bed made on his side. Closet cracked open. His weekend watch on the dresser.
I crossed to his side of the closet. Suits by color. Shirts folded on the shelf above.
I didn't know what I was looking for. I just knew I had to look.
I was reaching for the shelf when my phone rang.
Ethan's name on the screen.
May you like
I stood there. It rang again. A third time. I answered.
"Hey," he said. Warm. Easy. Exactly like always. "Just checking in. You okay? You were quiet this morning."
