the edges. The hallway smelled faintly of lemon polish and Julian’s cedar cologne.
She walked from room to room without taking off her shoes.
Nothing looked disturbed.
That was what frightened her most.
A thief would leave evidence of greed. A stranger would leave evidence of ignorance. Whoever came here knew where to step, where not to touch, how to enter and leave without troubling the surface of Mara’s life.
In Julian’s study, the afternoon light had already gone gray. His mahogany desk stood by the window, cleared except for a leather blotter, a fountain pen, and a brass lamp. Mara opened one drawer, then another. Receipts. Notecards. Old stationery. Nothing.
She closed the last drawer slowly and looked at their wedding photograph on the bookshelf. She was twenty-eight in the picture, smiling too widely, one hand pressed to Julian’s chest. He was handsome in a careful way, with dark hair and the calm expression of a man who expected the world to arrange itself around him.
For most of her marriage, Mara had mistaken that calm for strength.
That night, she told him over dinner.
Julian had come home late, as usual, shaking rain from his overcoat with a muttered complaint about traffic. He kissed Mara on the temple, poured a whiskey, and changed into a charcoal sweater before joining her at the kitchen island. The apartment lights reflected warmly off the windows. Outside, the city blurred in rain.
“Arman stopped me today,” Mara said.
Julian cut into his salmon. “About what?”
“He says a woman has been coming into our apartment on Thursdays. With a key.”
Julian’s knife paused.
Only for a second.
Then it continued, cleanly separating the fish.
“Arman watches too many crime shows,” he said.
Mara studied his face. “He found a key.”
“People drop keys.”
“He said she used it. More than once.”
Julian reached for his glass. His expression was almost bored. “Mara, don’t let an old man turn a dull afternoon into a spy novel.”
“You’re not curious?”
“About what? A mistaken doorman?”
“About a woman letting herself into our home?”
He sighed, and there it was: the look she hated. The patient disappointment. The husband lowering himself to reason with a wife being difficult.
“I’m curious why you’re letting this upset you,” he said. “That’s what I’m curious about.”
Mara folded her napkin in her lap. “Only we have keys.”
“Then there is your answer. He’s wrong.”
He took another bite. He did not ask what the woman looked like. He did not ask what time she came. He did not ask to see the key.
An innocent man would have wanted details.
Julian wanted the conversation to end.
The next morning, Mara ordered a small security camera disguised as a mantel clock. She did it at her office with her door closed, her finger hovering over the purchase button longer than necessary. It felt ugly, spying inside her own home. It also felt necessary.
By Wednesday evening, the clock sat on the living room bookshelf angled toward the entry hall. Mara adjusted it twice, then a third time after Julian went to bed. The camera caught the front door, the console table, and the hallway leading toward Julian’s study.
She told herself it would show nothing.
She told herself she
