Chapter 6: Thursday
I dropped Ava at school, came home, changed into something I felt steady in, and drove to Patricia Hale's office.
It was on the fourth floor of a building downtown — clean, quiet, the kind of office where the furniture was chosen to make people feel like they were in capable hands.
Patricia herself was in her late fifties, with short gray hair and the kind of direct eye contact that told you immediately she had heard everything before and was not easily rattled.
She shook my hand and gestured to the chair across from her desk.
"Walk me through it again," she said.
"From the beginning."
I did.
She took notes.
She asked precise questions.
She didn't express sympathy in a way that felt performative — she just listened and wrote and occasionally asked me to clarify a date or a detail.
When I finished, she set her pen down.
"The recurring transfer is interesting," she said.
"Seven months, two hundred dollars.
That's not a large amount, but the timing lines up with the message thread you described."
"He's been paying for something," I said.
"Possibly.
It could be as simple as a shared subscription or a storage unit.
It could be something more.
We'll find out." She folded her hands on the desk.
"Here's where you are.
You have documented evidence of an ongoing affair.
You have financial records that show a transfer you didn't authorize or know about.
You have a second phone — which you haven't moved — that contains extensive communication.
That's a reasonable foundation."
"What are my options?"
"That depends on what you want," she said simply.
"Some women come in here wanting to save the marriage.
Some want out as cleanly as possible.
Some want to make sure they're protected regardless of what their husband decides.
Where are you?"
I looked at my hands in my lap.
I'd been asking myself that question for three days.
"I want to be protected," I said.
"And I want Ava protected.
Whatever happens after that — I haven't decided yet."
Patricia nodded.
"That's a sensible place to start."
We spent another forty minutes going through specifics — what documentation I should continue gathering, what I should not do, how to handle the joint accounts, what to expect if things escalated.
When I stood to leave, Patricia walked me to the door.
"One more thing," she said.
"You mentioned he's going to the hotel today."
"That's what the message said.
Same place.
Thursday."
She looked at me steadily.
"Do you want to know for certain that he went?"
I understood what she was asking.
A private investigator.
Documentation.
Something that couldn't be argued away later as a misread text or a misunderstanding.
"Yes," I said.
"I want to know."
She nodded.
"I'll make a call."
I drove home.
I picked Ava up from school.
I made dinner.
David came home at seven, kissed me on the cheek, and said the meeting had run long.
He smelled faintly of a hotel room.
That particular combination of recycled air and someone else's perfume that you only notice when you're looking for it.
"How was your day?" he asked, pouring himself a glass of water.
"Fine," I said.
"Quiet."
He sat down at the table with Ava and helped her with her reading homework, and I stood at the stove and watched them, and I thought: he has no idea.
He is sitting in this kitchen with his daughter and his wife and he has absolutely no idea.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
A message from an unknown number.
*Confirmed.
Arrived 2:14 PM.
Departed 5:47 PM.
Photographs obtained.
Patricia has been notified.*
I turned the phone face-down without responding.
"Everything okay?" David called from the table.
"Just a spam text," I said.
May you like
He turned back to Ava's book.
I stirred the pot on the stove and waited for my hands to stop shaking.
