Simon smiled. “I can give you something more valuable. Freedom.”

“Freedom from what?” Kelly’s gut kinked into its first tight twist.

“You need to deal with more truth.”

The kink tightened into a knot.

Simon raised a finger to the empty frame. “You want your husband to be honest with you, but you aren’t honest with him. Perhaps the truth is you aren’t sick of him; you’re sick of what you’ve got.”

The empty frame sparkled and glittered as a photograph filled in. First, a single sheet of paper, a logo on it familiar to her but not to her husband. The reason she had chosen that bank. Then a statement from Beyond Bank. At first a light gray and then the permanence of black ink. And a name and address. Both belonged to her.

Kelly stared openmouthed. Simon’s voice surrounded her. Teased her ears.

“I know you think this is a secret that shouldn’t hurt anybody, but it will.”

Kelly’s wide-eyed amazement morphed into horror as the background of the photograph filled in. Her foyer tiles. The glossy white of her expansive front door. The bank statement sat on top of a suitcase in a red faux alligator print. The suitcase she’d packed and unpacked in her mind many times over. Her own.

“You realize why this suitcase is in bright color, don’t you?”

Kelly did.

Thirty-One

Daniel held fate in his hands. It deserved to be tempted.

As he leaned back in his office chair, his thumb brushed the inscription on the base of Gramps’s camera, the wording Simon and Gramps had “discussed.” The camera never lies.

He hoped that was the case this time as well. The Byrnes had been seeing him for a few weeks, and while Sharon had already admitted to an affair with David’s best friend, David had jammed the door shut on whatever kept the fires of his anger stoked.

That ruby-red smile appeared at his office door. It was good that Monique was back. One less fire to extinguish. “Your eleven thirty is here.”

Daniel placed Gramps’s camera on his desk and stood to welcome his clients.

David’s anger stormed in before he did, followed by a perfunctory handshake, thunder raging behind his gruff hello. His expression was always a giveaway to the timbre of discussion they would have. Today would be a long hour.

Sharon gave Daniel a tired smile before sitting down in one of the two chairs while David plopped into the other. Their first twenty minutes would be spent defusing whatever bomb had been activated on their drive to the appointment.

“Great to see both of you. Before we start, I’m taking photos of our clients so the team can get to know you. Would you mind?”

The clouds darkened on David’s face as he twisted his wedding ring. With a sweet smile, Sharon leaned across the gulf between their chairs.