Chapter 4: What the Phone Knew
Derek fell asleep before ten.
He always slept heavily — that hadn't changed.
I lay beside him for forty minutes, watching the ceiling, listening to his breathing slow and deepen.
Then I got up.
His phone was on his nightstand, face down.
I picked it up.
The screen lit up with a lock code prompt.
Six digits.
I tried our wedding anniversary.
Wrong.
I tried the kids' birthdays, one after the other.
Wrong.
Wrong.
I set the phone back down.
I stood there in the dark for a moment.
Then I went to his jacket — the one he'd worn today, still hanging on the back of the bedroom chair.
I checked the inside pocket.
Nothing.
The outer pocket.
A folded receipt from a coffee shop.
I turned it over.
Two coffees.
A slice of cake.
Eleven forty-three in the morning, three days ago.
A Tuesday.
Derek worked through lunch on Tuesdays.
He had told me that himself.
I folded the receipt and put it in my own pocket.
Back in bed, I stared at the ceiling again.
My chest was tight — not from the asthma this time.
In the morning, Derek was up and dressed before I came downstairs.
He poured himself coffee and didn't offer me any.
The children were still asleep.
"I want to apologize," he said, not looking up from his phone.
"For yesterday.
I was harsh."
I waited.
"The pharmacy thing — I should have just gone.
I was stressed about work."
"What kind of stress?" I asked.
He glanced up.
"The normal kind."
"You've been stressed for four months, Derek.
That's not normal."
He set his mug down.
"I said I was sorry.
Can we move on?"
"Who is she?"
The kitchen went very quiet.
Derek's hand stayed on the mug.
He didn't pick it up.
"What did you say?"
"On the phone last night.
You said *she found out.* I want to know who you were talking about."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then something in his posture shifted — not toward honesty.
Toward strategy.
"It was about a colleague," he said.
"A woman on my team.
She found out she's being let go.
It's a sensitive situation and I can't discuss it."
It was smooth.
Practiced, almost.
"You looked frightened," I said.
"Not concerned.
Frightened."
"I was caught off guard by the call."
"Derek—"
"I told you what it was." His voice hardened.
"I don't know what you want from me.
I apologized.
I explained.
If you've decided to make this into something it isn't, that's on you."
He picked up his jacket and his keys.
"I'll be late tonight," he said.
"Don't wait up."
The door closed.
I stood in the kitchen alone.
Then I took the receipt out of my pocket and looked at it again.
Two coffees.
A slice of cake.
A Tuesday at eleven forty-three.
I typed the name of the coffee shop into my phone.
It was twelve minutes from Derek's office.
Not a place you'd go alone for a quick break.
A place you'd go to sit with someone.
I called Carla.
"The phone was locked," I said when she picked up.
"But I found something else."
I told her about the receipt.
"Send me a photo of it," she said immediately.
"Why?"
"Because I know someone who works near that area.
And because you need to stop guessing and start knowing."
I photographed the receipt and sent it.
"Give me until this afternoon," Carla said.
I fed the children breakfast.
I got them dressed.
I moved through the morning on autopilot, smiling when they needed me to smile, reading to them when they brought me books, all while something cold and quiet settled in the center of my chest.
May you like
At two fifteen, Carla called back.
"I need you to sit down," she said.
