Chapter 2

“I was running late,” Luca said. “I wanted dinner ready before you got home. I pulled in, grabbed the groceries, and came straight upstairs.”

He glanced toward the hallway.

“I wasn’t thinking about the lines. Sorry, sweetheart. I’ll move it after we eat.”

There was no hesitation. No flicker of irritation at the question.

He turned back to the stove and lifted the lid off the soup.

I stood in the doorway, trying to decide whether I believed him.

He had never parked like that before. But I had never had a reason to doubt him, either.

There was a hot meal waiting for me almost every evening. Tonight was no different.

Luca ran the Moretti family. His phone rang through dinner, through the night, sometimes before dawn. Men waited hours for ten minutes of his time. A dispute at the docks could keep him out until morning; a meeting with another family could consume an entire weekend.

Still, most evenings he made it home in time to cook for me.

We had people who could do it: a chef on call, staff who could stock the refrigerator and leave dinner in the oven.

Luca insisted on doing it himself.

Sometimes I would find him in the kitchen with his phone pressed between his ear and shoulder, discussing a shipment while he checked whether my potatoes were done.

“You can let someone else handle dinner,” I used to tell him. “You’re exhausted.”

He always gave me the same answer.

“You wait too long to eat. Then your hands start shaking, your heart starts racing, and you tell me you’re fine.”

He would take my hand and kiss my fingers.

“I want you to come home, sit down, and eat. Everything else can wait.”

Now he was reaching into a cupboard for my favorite serving bowl.

“Could you get the bread, sweetheart? It’s already sliced.”

I carried it to the table.

By the time we sat down, he had laid out the chicken, roasted potatoes, green beans, and tomatoes dressed with olive oil and basil. He ladled soup into my bowl and set it carefully in front of me.

Every dish was something I loved.

He was pulling out his chair when his phone rang.

Luca checked the screen. His expression changed as he answered.

“What happened?”

He listened, one hand still resting on the chair.

“Who’s there with him?”

A pause.

“All right. Keep everyone where they are. I’m coming.”

He ended the call and pulled off his apron.

“There’s trouble at the docks,” he said. “One of our men got into it with a crew from Jersey. If I don’t get down there, somebody’s going to make it worse.”

I looked up at him.

“Now?”

“I’m sorry.”

He sounded it. He glanced at his untouched place setting, then reached for his keys.

“Eat while it’s hot. Don’t wait for me.”

He bent and kissed my forehead, his hand briefly warm against the back of my neck.

Then he was gone.

The door clicked shut.

I listened to his footsteps fade outside, followed by the faint chime of the elevator.

The apartment settled into silence.

Steam rose from my soup. Luca had put the butter beside my plate so I wouldn’t have to reach across the table. My water glass was full.

I picked up my fork.

Then I put it down again.

I kept thinking about the garage.

About the post.

About a woman waiting upstairs while a husband went down to move his car.

Luca had answered every question. He had cooked dinner. There had been no one in any of the rooms I checked.

I should have been able to eat.

Instead, I pushed back my chair.

In the bedroom, the bedside lamps cast a soft light over the bed. The duvet lay smooth, the pillows arranged neatly against the headboard.

Luca had made it.

He always tucked the sheets too tightly on his side. I used to tease him about it when I climbed into bed.

I stood at the foot of it, looking around.

Nothing had changed.

Still, I pulled back the duvet.

The sheets smelled of our detergent. I checked the pillows, then ran my hand over the mattress as though I might find something I had missed by looking.

Nothing.

I opened the closet.

My dresses hung in their usual places. His suits were lined up beside them, shoes arranged on the shelves below. No unfamiliar coat. No bag tucked into a corner.

I checked behind the closet door anyway.

Then the nightstands.

His held a watch, a charging cable, and the book he had been reading for weeks. Mine held hand cream, tissues, and a half-empty bottle of water.

The wastebasket was empty.

I stared into it for a moment, then let the lid fall.

What was I expecting to find?

I had searched the apartment twice now. My dinner was going cold while I went through drawers because of something a stranger had written online.

I pressed my palms against my eyes.

Maybe I was doing this to myself.

I turned to leave.

As I reached back for the bedroom door, a small glint beneath the bed caught the light.

I stopped.

There, just beyond the edge of the rug.

I crossed the room and crouched, bracing one hand against the floor. I had to reach under the bed with two fingers to drag it toward me.

An earring. A small gold hoop set with diamonds.

For a few seconds, I simply held it.

Then I looked at the bed above me.

I had never had my ears pierced.

My knees hurt against the floor, but I couldn’t seem to stand. I turned the earring over in my palm, searching for some detail that would make it belong to me.

There wasn’t one.

Another woman had lost it beneath our bed.

I gripped the mattress and got to my feet.

My phone was still in my coat pocket. I pulled it out, opened the forum, and found the post.

There was a new reply, posted one minute ago.

The original poster had replied beneath the parking suggestion.

“Tried your parking trick. Wife came home and didn’t call. Just let herself straight in.”

I stopped breathing.

Below it, he had added:

“Lucky I heard the lock. Got my girl into the service hall before my wife reached the bedroom. Another few seconds and she would’ve walked in on us.”

I read it twice.

I remembered easing my key into the lock. How careful I had been. How certain I was that I hadn’t made a sound.

The other man had replied almost immediately.

“Your wife’s got good instincts. Watch yourself.”

The answer appeared beneath it.

“Yeah. Made up an emergency so I could get out. Driving my girl home now.”

I stared at the screen until it dimmed.

Then I touched it and read the exchange again.

There had been no emergency at the docks.

While I was sitting in front of the dinner he had cooked, Luca was driving another woman home.

The same woman he had slipped into the service hall while I searched our apartment.

She had been here, close enough to hear me.

Close enough, perhaps, to hear him call me sweetheart.

I closed my fingers around the earring. The pin pressed into my palm, sharp enough to hurt.

Luca was cheating on me.

For all the time I had spent trying to find another explanation, the words were terribly simple.

He was cheating, and he had brought her home.

I put my phone away because I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. My hands shook so badly that I missed my pocket the first time.

Then I walked back to the dining room.

Roast chicken, potatoes, vegetables. A bowl of his mother’s soup.

He had even cut the potatoes into small pieces, the way I liked them, so the edges would turn crisp.

I stood behind my chair, staring at the meal.

Luca remembered everything.

What I liked to eat. How quickly I became shaky when I missed a meal. How I would close my eyes when he kissed my forehead before leaving.

He remembered all of it. Even tonight.