The Stranger I Married novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Virginia Street

He took me by the elbow and steered me through a door marked STAFF ONLY.

It was a narrow corridor that smelled of floor wax and clean towels.

He let go as soon as the door closed.

"I didn't know," he said. "I swear it on my father. I didn't know your fiance was hers."

"You looked me up. You read my lease."

"I read your business filings. I didn't read your engagement announcements."

"Everybody reads those."

"Not me."

I pressed my back against the cinder block and tried to breathe.

My ring was heavy on my left hand, a nice square diamond.

For the first time in fourteen months it felt like something I was wearing for someone else.

"You said 'she's my wife' in front of the whole lobby," I said.

"You tore up a check in front of the whole lobby."

"That was different."

"It was exactly the same." His mouth moved. "You were magnificent."

I wanted to stay angry.

Instead I remembered the first thing he ever said to me, and it had been almost the same.

"Tell me about the night," I said. "Tell me what you remember."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I remember it better than I should."

That was when I stopped being angry and started being afraid.

I was in Reno again, five years ago, in a bar called the Cal Neva, the kind of place where the carpet remembers.

Carly's bachelorette party filled six stools and three tables.

I had a lemon-drop in my hand and a crown of plastic daisies on my head, and Carly had the idea.

"Marry the next man who buys you a drink," she shouted over the slot machines. "I'll pay for the chapel!"

"I'm not marrying anyone."

"It's a dare. You never take a dare."

I looked down the bar.

There was exactly one man alone in it, in a rumpled black suit with the tie shoved in the pocket.

He had cropped hair and thick shoulders, and he was hunched over a whiskey he hadn't touched.

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