Chapter 8: The Man in the Gray Cap

Elise's hand went to the call button.

"Don't," Nolan said. "Please. Two minutes."

Jodie came back in with a bag of food and stopped dead.

"That's Selena's husband," she said.

"I know who he is," Elise said. She kept her eyes on Nolan. "Talk."

Nolan shut the door and stayed beside it.

"My project ended early. I flew home three weeks ago and told nobody. I wanted to surprise my wife."

"I went to my own house at midnight and stood in the garden," he said. "Calvin's coat was over the sofa. Calvin was asleep upstairs."

"And the nursery light was on, in the room I painted myself."

Jodie sat down slowly.

"Miles was born a month ago," Elise said. "You weren't there."

"I had one week of leave, ten months back," Nolan said evenly. "That is the only time he could have been mine."

"They told everyone he was, and I let them, until I saw how Calvin held him."

His voice stayed even, and his hands did not.

"I didn't confront them. I watched."

"Selena stopped showing her face on our video calls in her third month. That month I hired an investigator."

"His photos cover the pregnancy. Mine are the last three weeks."

"Why send them to me?" Elise asked.

"Because you were the one person Calvin wasn't managing," he said. "Everyone else in that family takes his word."

"The party today. The man in the gray cap with the phone."

"That was me."

Elise looked at the cap in his hand.

"I didn't know if you would come," Nolan said. "I'm glad you did."

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