Page 68 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

Maybe he found someone.

I crush harder. The comb collapses beneath the masher, releasing more honey into the bowl. At the engagement celebration, he didn’t say he was thinking about wanting this someday. He said he was ready to go find it.

What if the reason he wouldn’t answer my question over text is because the answer is yes? What if he met someone during a late-night client-relations emergency? A sophisticated woman who owns multiple suits and never loses her keys. A woman who understands whatever Miles does at Lancaster Business Solutions and doesn’t need Charlie to translate his family’s weird workplace vocabulary. A woman who can have children.

The thought pops in before I can block it.

I press the masher down again, forcing it back where it belongs. Nope. We are not doing that today. Today is for honey and completely reasonable theories involving mob bosses.

I transfer the crushed comb into the mesh bag, suspend it over the bucket, and watch the first narrow stream of honey begin to drip. Slowly. Painfully slow. At approximately the same speed that Miles is moving toward telling me whatever he needs to tell me.

I wash my hands, then check my phone. No new messages. I add a few things to my list.

6. Secret billionaire.

7. International criminal.

8. Joined a cult that uses phrases like “read you in.”

I consider adding government spy, then immediately reject it because I am not a person in one of our shows. I am a middle school librarian standing in a kitchen with a bit of honey stuck to her ear.

I spend the next few hours cleaning the frame, rotating the straining bag, sterilizing jars, and checking my phone every time it makes a noise. Miles sends nothing. Charlie sends nothing.

By eleven thirty, I have filled three jars, begun a fourth, and consumed enough honey directly from a spoon that I may technically qualify as a bear. By one o’clock, the honey is still draining, and I have reached the limits of what can reasonably be accomplished by hovering over it.

I clean the kitchen, change out of my sticky clothes, take a quick shower, get dressed, and start a load of laundry. At two twenty-seven, I text Miles again.

Reese: Can you at least tell me whether I need to wear supportive shoes for this conversation?

His answer comes ten minutes later.

Miles: Really, you can wear whatever you want.

That is also not helpful.

Reese: Formal black? Casual black? Funeral black?

Miles: Reese.

Reese: That is not a dress code.

He doesn’t respond.

At three, I decide I’m done waiting. I’m going to go to his work, look him directly in the eye, and ask whether I need to emotionally prepare for him to say he has met someone. Yes, I know his workplace requires security and isn’t open to the public. But I can go to the gate and wait until someone sends him outside. This is not impatience. It’s me being proactive. And trying to keep my heart from having a medical emergency.

My phone is already in my pocket. I grab my keys from the table by the door, and I reach toward the hook where I keep my purse, but the hook is empty. I take a quick glance around. I even look in the laundry room, though I have never once deliberately put my purse there. I head back to the kitchen, and nothing.

I pause, trying to mentally retrace my movements, but memory retrieval is one of those skills that abandons me precisely when I need it.

Then I smile. A few months ago, Charlie and I were doing a marathon shopping day, and while we were in a thrift store, I’d needed both hands to look at a cute skirt. So, I asked the mannequin right next to it to “hold my purse,” and hooked it on its arm. We’d made it through a handful more stores before I realized it was missing, and we had to backtrack through them all to find where I’d left it. By the time we’d finished shopping, Charlie had bought me an AirTag to keep inside my purse specifically for situations like this. I open the app and tap on the tag.

My purse is at a private aviation complex outside Baltimore. For several seconds, I can only blink at the map. My purse has been stolen. I probably need to worry about identity theft! And someone selling my library card on the black market. I need to get it back.

I race out to my car, my mind whirring. I’ve just gotten on Interstate 70, heading toward Baltimore, when a memory catches up with me. Last night, Miles and I got curry. Afterward, we walked along the river trail in Cloakwood because the weather was unseasonably warm and neither of us wanted to go home yet. I didn’t want to carry my purse, and I didn’t want to leave it visible inside his car, so I put it in his trunk.

Where it apparently still is. And I had shared the AirTag with Miles, so it wouldn’t have even notified him that an AirTag was traveling with him. He probably has no idea I left it in his trunk.

I look at the map again. The hangar must be where Miles is working today, which means my plan doesn’t need to change. I can retrieve my purse and demand answers in person. Two problems solved by one impulsive forty-minute drive.