Page 93 of The Silent Hour

I watched him cycle through it, the lawyer's instinct to rebut, the husband's instinct to soothe, the man caught somewhere between both.

"I'm not building a case. I'm being careful. There's a difference."

"Then show me the difference."

His hands slid from my hips to my waist, pulling me closer until his face was level with my chest. He pressed his forehead against the fleece of my robe, and I felt the warmth of his breath through the fabric.

"I'm sorry," he said, the words muffled against me.

But what was he apologizing for, exactly? I traced the edge of the envelope with one finger, wondering how we’d gotten here.

Maybe that drunken kiss and his sheer stupidity only highlighted the hairline fractures we’d never noticed before.

I was starting to think that somewhere along the way, my husband had gotten a little too comfortable with the version of me who packed lunches, organized permission slips, and then crawled into his arms when he came home at night. To the point he expected me to be some demure housewife who nodded and smiled like every one of his words was gospel.

I was in fact none of those things, but maybe his belief was partly my fault. Marriage had filed down some of my edges. Motherhood had quietly moved others, but neither had touched where I came from. If anything, being a mom made how I handled whatever happened between us more important than ever.

They were watching me.

That alone was reason enough to teach them that loving a man never meant kneeling for him.

"Hey," he said softly, fingers pressing once against my hip. "I love you."

I looked at him for a moment. "I love you too."

That was the cruelest thing about love. It didn't care that you were disappointed.

It just sat there, unchanged, and waited for you to find somewhere to put the hurt.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

ETHAN

WE HEADED OUT AT 7:30.

I called my wife and let her know so she didn't see my location and think the worst, like I was being buried in some shallow grave. She was distracted by something, I picked up on it within the first two minutes of our call. She didn't give much away but promised she'd tell me whatever it was when I got home.

That made me eager to get this over with.

The ride was quiet, the city bleeding into warehouse sprawl and then nothing but half-lit industrial blocks. Eric sat shotgun, scrolling something on his phone, the glow lighting his sharp profile. When I turned the wheel onto the dirt road nearly 45 minutes later, barbed chain-link gates loomed ahead—rusted, sagging, and marked with a faded red PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESPASSING.

I slowed and scanned. There were no headlights, and we had no tail. It was silent too, nothing but the hum of the engine. I killed the lights and got out. The hinges groaned as I shoved the gates open, gravel scraped under my soles. I checked once more to make sure we were good, then slid back into the driver's seat.

The car rolled through, slow and deliberate. I stopped just inside, climbed back out, and pushed the gates shut behind us. I didn't bother latching them—if we needed to leave, I wanted out fast.

"Charming," Eric drawled, eyes on the skeletal shadows of the site as I got back in. "If OSHA saw this place, they'd just torch it and start over."

I grunted, driving deeper, flipping on the low beams. They carved the site into sharp fragments. A crane frozen in rust, tarps whipping like flags, dumpsters spilling warped wood and insulation. Graffiti scrawled over a shipping container, some fresh, layered on top of older tags. Weeds shoved through gravel even worse down here.

Puddles of rainwater gleamed in ruts where grading had gone wrong. This wasn't active. It hadn't been for months.

"You talk to Knox yet?" Eric asked.

I thumbed my phone. One call, two. Both had gone straight to voicemail. Our last few texts were left unread. "No. He's ghosting, apparently."

"Or dead in a ditch." Eric shrugged. "Fifty-fifty."

"You know this isn't like him. He's been off for the past few days."