Grant immediately moved closer.
“My wife has nothing to do with Laya’s luggage,” he said.
“We’re traveling separately from her.”
I almost laughed.
Five minutes earlier, he had been arranging our bags in a precise order and pretending Laya was merely an employee coincidentally traveling beside us.
Now he wanted distance.
The officer looked at the matching itinerary information and then at Grant.
“You know Ms.
Bennett?”
“She works for me.”
“Only works for you?”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
Laya looked at him.
I said nothing.
Silence can be useful when someone is lying.
People rush to fill it, and eventually they use the wrong words.
Grant did exactly that.
“She’s my executive assistant.
She’s carrying company materials to London.”
The officer glanced at the locked case.
“How do you know what she’s carrying?”
Grant froze.
A fraction of a second.
Enough.
“I mean the documents she was assigned to deliver.”
Laya stared at him.
“You told me they were already in my portfolio.”
Grant’s eyes cut toward her.
The officer heard it too.
“What documents?” he asked.
Laya pointed shakily toward her bag.
“A folder Grant gave me yesterday.
He told me not to open it.
He said a board member would collect it during the layover.”
Grant stepped in again.
“This is proprietary company business.”
The officer’s expression did not change.
“Then you can explain it in the interview room.”
Grant turned to me.
“Evelyn, tell them this has nothing to do with us.”
Us.
He had spent months building a future in which there was no us.
Now, suddenly, he needed the word.
I placed my coffee on the counter.
“I can tell them exactly what I know.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Ev.”
It was a warning disguised as my nickname.
I opened my handbag and removed my phone.
Grant’s face lost color.
At 2:11 that morning, when I heard him leave our bedroom, I had not followed immediately.
Grant was careful when he believed he was being watched.
The trick was letting him believe he was alone.
I waited.
When I finally went to the hallway, the apartment was dark except for the thin line of light beneath the guest-room door where our luggage had been stored.
I heard the soft rasp of a zipper.
