“I’ve never seen her before.”
“She came carrying that folder.”
“How long did she stay?”
“Almost two hours.”
“And that clip?”
“The following day.”
“She’s crying.”
“Yes.”
“Were they alone?”
“Yes.”
“Every time?”
“Claire…”
“Were they?”
“Mostly.”
I stared at the screen.
For three days, I replayed Jack’s secret drives, hidden papers, and late-night calls.
I needed to find that woman and ask what she had been doing in my husband’s hospital room. Why hadn’t Jack told me anything about her?
At two in the morning, I whispered into the darkness, “Were you cheating on me?”
I hated myself for asking a dead man.
Then, one evening, someone knocked on my door.
Lucy was coloring at the kitchen table.
“Mommy, who’s here?”
“I don’t know, baby.”
I opened the door.
It was her. The woman from the footage.
She was thin and looked exhausted. Her eyes were wet with tears, and she held an envelope against her chest.
