Chapter 12: The Folders

The little red car sat at the end of the drive for six minutes.

Nobody got out.

Rafe stood beside me in the dark with the blanket around his waist and said nothing.

Then the engine started and the car backed away down the gravel road without its lights.

I called Lacey at a quarter to three.

She picked up on the fourth ring, thick with sleep.

"Jo? What is it? Are you okay?"

"Where are you?"

"In bed. Why? Did something happen?"

I heard her sit up.

"Do you need me to come? I can drive up right now."

I closed my eyes.

"No," I said. "Go back to sleep."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

I hung up and stood very still in front of the window.

"She said she was home," I said.

"Is the car hers?"

"There's a dent on the fender. I paid for the bodywork." My voice sounded strange. "Somebody could have borrowed it."

"Somebody could have."

He didn't say anything else.

He didn't have to.

On Monday morning I took the subway to Tribeca.

I let myself into Lacey's building with the key she had given me in January.

I hadn't told her I was coming.

Rafe waited in the truck at the curb.

He had asked to come up, and I had said no, and he had said, Then I'll be right here.

I needed that more than I wanted to admit.

The loft was on the fourth floor, with big arched windows and an iron staircase.

I opened the door with my key, and I did it quietly.

I don't know why.

The first thing I heard was a man humming.

The second thing I saw was my husband at my sister's stove, in his socks, flipping an omelet.

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