I walked toward the dresser, trying to sound relaxed. “You didn’t have to wait up.”

“I wasn’t waiting,” she said. “Just catching up.”

Then she lifted my white shirt from the laundry basket. At first I didn’t understand what she was pointing out. Then I saw the smear near the collar: a curved streak of deep red lipstick, impossible to miss against the fabric.

She held it delicately between two fingers and asked, almost politely, “Should I wash this, or keep it as evidence?”

I let out a nervous laugh, but it died halfway through. “Evidence of what?”

Emily folded the shirt over her arm, looked straight into my eyes, and said, “The police may want it.”

The room seemed to freeze. My mouth went dry. I stared at her, trying to decide whether she meant divorce, murder, or something I hadn’t even begun to consider.

And then she added, “Before you say another lie, you should know your girlfriend is dead.”

For a moment, I truly thought I had heard her wrong. The word dead did not belong in our bedroom, beside neatly folded towels and the lamp Emily always left on for me. It belonged on the evening news, in some stranger’s tragedy, somewhere far away from our marriage. But Emily had said it with terrible precision, and once spoken, it altered the entire atmosphere of the room.

“What?” I whispered.

She placed the shirt down with deliberate care. “Vanessa Cole. Thirty-four. Found tonight in the parking garage behind the Halston Building.”

My stomach twisted cold. That was where I had seen Vanessa two hours earlier. We had argued in her car after dinner. She wanted me to leave Emily. She said she was tired of being hidden. I told her she was overreacting. She called me a coward. I walked away angry, leaving her sitting in the driver’s seat with tears in her eyes and probably my handprint still on the door where I had slammed it shut.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because Detective Ross called here looking for you.”

Every muscle in my body tensed. “Why would the police call here?”

Emily exhaled slowly, the sound almost sympathetic. “Because your phone was off, and apparently my number is still listed as your emergency contact. They found your business card in her purse.”

I sat down on the chair near the window because my knees suddenly didn’t feel trustworthy. “Emily, I didn’t kill anyone.”

She watched me silently, and I realized how worthless my word sounded now. Affairs don’t just break trust; they destroy credibility. Every lie I had told about late meetings and client dinners was now standing beside us in the room, ready to testify against me.

“I left her alive,” I said. “We argued. I walked out. That’s it.”

“Did anyone see you leave?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. The garage had been almost empty.

Emily nodded once, as though my silence had answered the question. “That’s a problem.”

I ran both hands over my face. “You think I did it.”

“I think,” she said carefully, “that you’re a man who lied to me for months, came home smelling like another woman, and now that woman is dead. So what I think doesn’t matter nearly as much as what the police are going to think.”

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