Reborn to Destroy My Husband's Crying Mistress novel · Chapter 2 of 6

Chapter 2: The Name on the Roll

Maren watches Desmond kneel to Josie in the lobby, learns Josie's guest badge carries Corinne's staff-level signature, signs the ten o'clock roll, and learns her daughter has been signed out of nursery school by a woman using Desmond's name.

He went down on one knee at the foot of the stairs.

Josie's face was still wet from the puddle.

She had stopped crying at the desk. She started again when he took out his handkerchief.

'There you are,' Desmond said. 'There you are. It's all right.'

He dabbed her cheek with the cloth.

He held her chin to do it, two fingers under her jaw.

He did not let go until the last tear was gone.

The guard watched.

The receptionist watched.

A courier by the door watched and did not move.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

The nursery school was calling.

'Mrs. Marsh, it's Dana at the front desk. Junie's crying and asking for you. We need to confirm who is allowed to collect her today.'

My daughter was alive and crying for me.

I typed my answer and typed it wrong.

I deleted a letter and typed it again and got it wrong again.

Corinne came down the stairs.

She took the last four steps fast and stopped beside the desk.

She looked at Desmond kneeling and Josie crying and she did not blink.

'Des,' she said, loud enough for the whole lobby. 'Give the girl some room. She's had a shock.'

Desmond stood up so fast he nearly went over.

He put the handkerchief away. He straightened his jacket.

His hands did not know where to go.

Josie wiped her own face with the back of her hand.

'He was only being kind,' she said.

She said it to the room. She said it looking straight at me.

A woman behind me clicked her tongue in disapproval.

Desmond took my elbow.

His hand closed on it and did not open.

It was a grip. It was not a greeting.

'Let's talk upstairs,' he said. 'This isn't the place.'

The elevator doors shut on the two of us.

He let go of my arm and put his hands in his pockets.

'You made a scene in front of the whole floor,' he said.

'I stood still,' I said.

'You know what I mean.'

'Do I?'

He looked at the numbers going up.

'The girl is a temp from the third-floor pool. That's all she is. She fell on the tile and everybody wants a story.'

He said it to the doors, not to me.

He had said her first name before the doors opened.

The elevator stopped on three.

I walked out ahead of him.

A guest badge lay on the second stair, face down, the lanyard still curled.

Josie must have dropped it when Corinne walked her up.

I picked it up and turned it over in my palm.

The back was stamped STAFF LEVEL.

Under that, in a fine black hand I had known since college, was the issuing signature. C. Sayer.

Corinne had put a key to every staff door in the pocket of the woman my husband swore he had never met.

I put it in my pocket.

Harold Vance was waiting for the elevator with his briefcase against his leg.

I took the badge out and held it face up.

'Mr. Vance,' I said. 'You'll want to see the back of this.'

He took it. He turned it over and read the stamp. He read the signature.

Then he said it out loud, to the whole third floor.

'Corinne. You signed off on a staff pass for a guest.'

Corinne had come up behind us. She stood very still.

'I'll be raising that at ten,' Harold said.

'Harold,' Corinne said. 'It was a courtesy. She was soaked through.'

'It's stamped staff level. It opens doors.'

'She's a temp. She doesn't know what the stamp means.'

'Then why did you sign it?'

Corinne opened her mouth and closed it again.

Her eyes went to Desmond and stayed there.

Harold put the badge in his breast pocket and walked to the elevator.

Desmond turned on Corinne.

'You said you'd handle the badge,' he said. 'This is handling it?'

Corinne's mouth tightened. She did not answer.

The receptionist had stopped typing.

The guard from downstairs had come up with a clipboard and was pretending to read it.

My phone rang.

The school had tried my phone twice while I was in the lobby.

'Mrs. Marsh,' Dana said. 'Junie's been signed out already. A woman came to the door and gave Mr. Marsh's name.'

My hand found the wall. The plaster was cold under my palm.

I breathed once. I breathed again.

'This is Junie's mother,' I said. 'No one but me picks her up today. Not her father. Not anyone he sends.'

'Understood, Mrs. Marsh.'

I hung up.

Desmond was watching me.

'Who was it?' he said. 'Who signed her out?'

'You tell me.'

His face did not change.

I walked to the reception desk.

The board roll lay open on the blotter, the ten o'clock line waiting.

I took the pen and signed my name in ink. Maren Calder Marsh.

'I'll be in that meeting,' I said. 'My name stays on the roll.'

Harold Vance nodded once at me from the elevator.

The receptionist looked at my signature and then at Corinne.

Corinne picked up the desk phone.

'Get me the board secretary,' she said. 'We need to strike a name from the roll before ten.'

She said it with her back to me and her hand flat on the desk.

I turned back from the stairwell door.

I walked to the desk and stopped beside her.

'Strike my name,' I said, 'and I'll tell that room why Corinne signed a staff pass for the woman Desmond swore under oath he had never met.'

Corinne's hand came off the desk.

The phone was still at her ear.

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