At 2 A.M., my wife inched closer to me and whispered, “Two lines… I’m pregnant.” I had barely pulled her into my arms when her phone lit up: “Interesting… so the baby could be mine or your husband’s?”
Claire opened the final attachment with a finger that was still shaking. For a second, all I saw was a grainy image taken under yellow streetlights, the kind of picture you might dismiss if you didn’t recognize the place. I recognized it immediately. The house had been sold years ago, but I knew the cracked stone steps, the narrow side window, and the rusted mailbox that my father used to swear he would replace every summer. It was the house where I had grown up. More specifically, it was the house where Daniel Mercer had disappeared from my life twelve years earlier. I looked at Claire. “Where did he get this?” “I don’t know.” “You’ve been talking to him for nine months and you don’t know?” Her eyes tightened. “I said I don’t know where he got the picture.” “That isn’t the same thing.” “No,” she whispered. “It isn’t.” I took the phone from her this time. She didn’t stop me. The photo had been taken recently. That much was obvious from the black SUV parked at the curb and the new...