Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN AT THE LAKE
The first photograph showed Andrew standing on the cottage porch.
His arm was around a blonde woman I recognized immediately.
Brooke Tanner worked for the same company as Andrew.
I had met her twice.
Once at a Christmas dinner.
Once at an employee charity event.
Both times, she had smiled at me.
The second photograph showed Andrew kissing her beside the lake.
The third showed them carrying grocery bags into the cottage.
The fourth was taken through a restaurant window two towns away.
Brooke was touching Andrew’s face across the table.
The date printed beneath the picture was six weeks earlier.
Michael watched me carefully.
“I’m sorry.”
I kept looking.
There were more.
Different clothes.
Different weekends.
Different seasons.
“This has been happening for a while.”
Michael nodded.
“About eleven months, from what I can prove.”
Eleven months.
I thought about Andrew’s sales trips.
The missed dinners.
The nights he claimed bad weather forced him to stay near Buffalo.
The sudden obsession with keeping his phone face down.
Lorraine appeared behind me.
“What is going on?”
Michael’s face hardened.
I moved slightly so she could see the photographs.
For once, Lorraine had nothing to say.
Then she shook her head.
“These could be anything.”
Michael laughed without humor.
“That’s my wife.”
Lorraine looked at him.
“And?”
“And that’s your son kissing her.”
She immediately found another defense.
“Maybe Claire drove him to it.”
Something inside me went cold.
Michael looked stunned.
I was not.
That response was the most Lorraine thing Lorraine could possibly say.
I gathered the photographs.
“Why did you bring these to me?”
Michael hesitated.
“Because I found something else.”
He removed several printed screenshots from the envelope.
They were text messages between Andrew and Brooke.
Most were disgusting in ordinary ways.
Complaints about spouses.
Plans for weekends.
Promises about the future.
Then I found one message that changed the entire situation.
Andrew had written:
Once Claire signs the papers, I’ll control the house and we won’t need to sneak around anymore.
Brooke had replied:
Are you sure she’ll sign?
Andrew answered:
She signs whatever I put in front of her if I tell her it’s about taxes.
My hands began trembling.
Not from heartbreak.
From recognition.
Three weeks earlier, Andrew had placed a stack of documents beside my coffee.
He had called them insurance forms.
I had been too tired to read them.
But for once, I had refused to sign.
Michael pointed to another message.
There was a date.
Monday.
Andrew had written:
The bank is moving faster than I expected.
Monday should finish everything.
May you like
It was Saturday.
I had less than forty-eight hours to discover what my husband was trying to do to my house.
