AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Anyone in your husband’s family?”
She shook her head emphatically, nose wrinkled like she had zero allegiance to those people.
“That’s wise. Anyone your husband would think to ask?”
Madison cocked her head as she swallowed a healthy bite of egg. Then she shook her head.
“Even better. Are you supposed to have more contact with this person?”
She nodded, nibbling on more bacon.
He cursed. “Don’t. I’m sure you’d rather not worry whoever this is, so I’ll have someone reach out to…him?”
“Her,” she corrected between bites.
Matt shouldn’t have felt relief. Madison’s sex life was no longer any of his concern. It never really had been. He’d just been kidding himself.
He plucked a pad of paper and a pen off a nearby counter. “Write her name and number. I’ll make sure she knows you’re safe.” She wrote a first name he wasn’t at all familiar with. The last rang a bell. “Sadie Wilson. Any relation to the Pershings’ housekeeper, Willa?”
Madison swallowed the last of her bacon and chased it with a swig of water. “You know her name?”
Did she think that when they’d stopped talking, he had stopped caring? “You know what I do for a living, and you’re asking me that?”
She flushed under the stove’s anemic light. “I forgot, you EM Security boys are all-seeing, all-powerful, and totally suspicious.”
He repressed a smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Sadie is Willa’s daughter. She’s a junior at Georgetown. She doesn’t come by the Pershings’ place much anymore.”
“Does the family know you two are close?”
“No.” Madison pushed her mostly empty plate aside. “They…discouraged our friendship not long after I married. We talk when we can. I have the occasional volunteer committee or ladies’ league luncheon not too far from campus, so we make time for coffee, but as far as the Pershings know, Sadie and I don’t speak beyond a superficial hello.”
There were so many things wrong with that statement. The Madison Matt had known three years ago had been full of life and just a little bit wild. But autonomy was one of those things people lost when they sold out. He’d bet she’d learned that the hard way since saying “I do.” Then again, she’d always had a compliant streak. He ought to know.
“Between here and DC, have you used an ATM card, credit card, or—”
“No. I scattered those, hoping random people would use them all over and confuse Todd. In fact, everything else except cash, my clothes, and a few…incidentals, I left behind.” She swallowed. “Do you want to know what happened, or do I still not matter to you?”
He resisted the urge to correct her dig. Now wasn’t the time to revisit the past. And what was the point? “Tell me.”
She did, beginning with visiting her husband for reasons she didn’t specify at an apartment he kept in town for “convenience’s sake” and ending with her filming Brent Westbrook’s murder, then running for her life. When she was finished, Matt sat back, sifting through everything she’d said. Either her statement proved she hadn’t lost her naiveté or…suggested she was spoon-feeding him half-truths and playing games.
He tapped his thumb on the island, watching her. “He cheated on you.”
To her credit, she barely blanched. “Yes.”
“A lot.”
“Constantly.”
Jesus… “Have you always known that?”
“We went to Nice for our honeymoon. I was excited, because I’d never been to France, and he promised to show me everything. He did, especially things I didn’t expect…like him banging a high-class prostitute four days into our marriage.”
What a bastard. “Why didn’t you leave him then?”
Madison shook her head. “Does it matter anymore? I can’t undo the past. The future is what’s unwritten. All I can do now is focus on staying alive. And keeping my father safe. He’s got cancer.”
