Page 22 of You Know Why

“Everything okay?” Eden asks.

“Yeah, the hotel my sister found is downtown. Nothing near the airport was available.”

“It’s a sign,” she says, a huge smile crossing her face. “My place is ten minutes away. Please, let me help. I know you must be completely rocked. I can call my detective friend. And there really is pizza in the freezer.”

The kids start crowing delightedly at this, and I can’t take it anymore. I tell her the God-to-honest truth. “I appreciate all of this, really, but I need some time alone to process what’s happened. You understand.”

A beat. Eden searches my face and nods. “Oh, I do. Completely. I have some processing to do myself.” She holds up a hand, and a cab rolls forward to our position at the curb. “Good luck, Brook. I hope it all works out. Stay in touch, would you? If he comes back? Not that it’s my business, really, but I guess I’m worried for you all.”

“That’s really kind of you, Eden. Me too. Thank you for your help. Come on, babies. Let’s go.”

Domesticated

We wave to Eden as the cab pulls away from the curb. She watches us go thoughtfully, that look on her face like she knows something she isn’t saying, and I turn forward, trying to shake the weird vibe I’ve gotten from her.

I let the kids chatter and answer as much as I can, which is very little. The car’s heater is blasting warm air, and the motion lulls us all. I’m grateful when the kids fall asleep. I wasn’t kidding; I need some time to process, to be angry, to be scared. To fall apart. I can’t keep up the brave face much longer.

The odds of Eden knowing another man with my husband’s name and face are . . . slim. Coupled with his freak-out and sudden departure, and Bob’s information, I can’t help but wonder if Trey is the one lying and Eden is telling the truth. She does know him. She did go to school with him. And he’s been hiding that from me. Which makes exactly zero sense. Trey has never lied to me.

But with everything that’s happened today, I’m starting to lose faith in my husband. Which, yes, is the ultimate betrayal, but the asshole walked out on us, so maybe I won’t feel guilty for too long.

Malogen, Georgia? I’ve never heard of it. I look it up on my phone. It’s northeast of Atlanta, in the mountains. Population: 4,989. My husband, from a small Southern town? I can’t even imagine. This is all a mistake.

I enter “Andrew Locke” and “Malogen, Georgia” into the search.

There’s nothing, no hits, and my heart does a tiny dance of joy. I try the same but with “Hartford,” and there are several generic hits, including one of those random high school black-and-white whole-class-in-the-football-stands photos, where no one is recognizable, and it costs money to access the site.

I just don’t get this at all. Eden must be mistaken.

I type in the name Chloe Barrow and find a short obituary.

Chloe Elizabeth Barrow Locke, 24, of Malogen, Georgia, beloved daughter, sister, and wife, will be laid to rest today at the Olivet Cemetery. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Malogen Animal Friends League.

Oh. Now I feel bad. Eden’s sister is dead. Has been, for almost eleven years.

Beloved wife. And her surname is Locke.

Could they have been . . . married?

Could Trey have been married to Eden’s now-dead sister?

No. No way. There’s not a chance in hell Trey is a widower and kept that from me. Right? He would have been grief stricken. It would have been the first thing he shared. No. Impossible.

My heart is pinging away, the tightness that presages the heightened anxiety I thought was well past. Not exactly a panic attack, but a fight-or-flight reaction, a tensing of muscles, and hyperawareness of my surroundings. Extreme vigilance. It happens when I stop moving for too long.

Though technically, I stopped moving several years ago, when I fell in love, got pregnant, got married, in that order, then gave up my career—my life—to accommodate this new reality.

And now, to have that rebuilt reality upended, on the first trip overseas Trey has ever wanted to take? This feels like a slap, somehow.

It feels like a setup.

It feels like my husband knows something I don’t.

And that pisses me off. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and he doesn’t have the right to just walk out.

I am going to find him. I am going to make him tell me the truth.

And I’ll decide what to do from there.