“Halloween. It’s only 3 months away.”

Ugh.

Something was happening by the driveway. Something involving raised voices. I concentrated. Marais, standing just inside the boundary. He wouldn’t have stepped on the inn’s grounds unless he wanted to alert us.

“This conversation isn’t over,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

“No worries. They’re not going anywhere.”

I went out of the inn the old-fashioned way, through the front door and down the steps to the driveway. Beast followed me, ever so vigilant.

At the bottom of the driveway Marais stood next to his cruiser. A dark-haired plump woman faced him, her arms crossed over her chest. Her face was in profile, but there was no mistaking that body language.

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t.” Marais didn’t sound convincing.

Uh-oh.

“You said you were going to work. I went by the station, Hector! They told me you were on vacation!”

She sounded really angry.

“I have a side hustle.”

Wrong choice of words.

“You have a side something, alright.”

“It’s a job, Donna.”

“You are a workaholic. In the past three years you took one vacation, and I had to twist your arm to do it. Do you expect me to believe that you voluntarily took vacation time to work another job?”

“As you said, a workaholic…”

“You are parked in front of someone’s house!” She shook her head. “Stop lying to me. How could you do this to me? To us, to our family?”

Marais held his hands up. “It’s not what you think.”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. I thought we were a team. I thought we talked to each other. It was us against the world. Now here you are sneaking around. Lying to me, to our kids, to your job. What happened to you?”

Hector’s marriage was exploding in slow motion in front of me. Someone had to throw themselves on that grenade, and Hector wasn’t going to do it, because deep inside he was still the Officer Marais who promised to keep our secret. He looked desperate.

I started down the driveway.

“I love you very much,” Mrs. Marais said. “But I can’t deal with cheating or lying. I won’t.”

“Donna, please…”

“You know what hurts the most? It’s not even the cheating itself. It’s that you were so unhappy that you looked for comfort with someone else, and I had no idea.” Her voice caught. “You didn’t trust me enough to let me know.”

There was so much hurt in her voice. Ouch.

Marais looked like he wanted to fall through the ground under his feet.