Chapter 8: Cavan's Kitchen

Cavan read the lawyer's letter twice standing at my counter, and then he put it down and shook his head.

"It's a bluff," he said.

"You're an engineer."

"I'm an engineer who has signed forty contracts. A promise from a husband isn't a deed. He can't give away what he doesn't own."

"The lawyer said the same thing on the phone this morning."

"Then why do you look sick?"

"Because Danielle hired a lawyer in a single night," I said. "That means she planned for this. She planned for me throwing her out."

He leaned a hip against the counter.

"She planned for you saying yes, too. A woman like that always has two plans."

He had come at noon with a paper bag of groceries and no warning.

He said he'd had nowhere to be, and that a stranger in a hotel room wasn't a person who ate.

I hadn't argued.

The house had been so quiet since the officers left that I could hear the refrigerator.

"I called Danielle's number again last night," he said. "It's disconnected. Hoyt's stopped answering too."

"Do you know where they are?"

"Not yet. I called a friend at the county. She says Danielle renewed a lease two days ago on a place across town."

"Hoyt's paying for it."

"Probably."

He opened the bag and began to unpack: eggs, bread, a pound of butter, three lemons.

"You're cooking?" I asked.

"I'm making you lunch. You haven't eaten properly since you came home, I'd guess."

I stared at the lemons.

"How would you know that?"

"Your sister called me this morning."

"My sister doesn't have your number."

"I put it on the back of that receipt. She found it by your phone." He glanced up. "She said you'd be too proud to ask for help."

Keep reading free with an account. Start After My Miscarriage, My Husband Locked Me Out from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.