Chapter Twenty-Three: The Things He Hid at Work
1434 Words
Harper
Cole knocked at exactly seven.
I had spent the previous hour pretending I wasn’t waiting for him.
I changed my shirt twice, cleaned the kitchen counter, and moved Gavin’s toothbrush into a drawer so Cole wouldn’t see it.
Then I hated myself for caring what he thought.
When I opened the door, he stood in the hallway holding a black canvas bag.
His gaze moved over me quickly.
Not admiring.
Assessing.
“You look terrible,” he said.
I folded my arms. “You always know exactly what to say.”
“I meant tired.”
“That’s much kinder.”
He held out the bag.
“These were in Gavin’s locker.”
I took it, expecting him to leave.
He didn’t.
“Is that everything?” I asked.
“Everything that looked like yours.”
The bag was heavier than I expected.
I stepped away from the door.
“You can come in.”
“I’m fine here.”
“Of course you are.”
Cole’s jaw tightened.
I carried the bag to the kitchen table and unzipped it.
A paperback novel sat on top. I had loaned it to Gavin months ago after he claimed firefighters read more than instruction manuals and restaurant menus.
Beneath it was one of my hair ties, a phone charger, and the blue scarf I had spent weeks searching for.
Then I found the photographs.
There were four.
Gavin and me at the lake.
Gavin laughing while I held up the burned toast he had tried to serve me at the cabin.
One of us sitting on my couch with his arm around my shoulders.
The last was a photograph of me alone, asleep against the passenger window of his truck.
I didn’t remember him taking it.
My throat tightened.
Cole remained near the doorway.
“You looked at them?”
“I had to check what was in the bag.”
“So yes.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“You must have an opinion.”
“I have several.”
“Try keeping them to yourself.”
“I was planning to.”
I placed the photographs facedown.
A folded envelope was tucked beneath them.
My name was written across the front in Gavin’s handwriting.
I stopped breathing.
Cole took one step into the apartment.
“What is it?”
“You didn’t see this?”
“No.”
I opened the envelope with shaking fingers.
Inside was the cabin reservation for the following year.
The same one already folded inside my purse.
This was a second copy.
On the back, Gavin had written:
**Next year, we won’t have to lie about where we’re going.**
I read it again.
Then again.
Cole looked away.
“He kept this in his locker?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Because he couldn’t keep it at home.
Because Natalie might find it.
Because even the evidence of our future needed somewhere to hide.
I lowered myself into a chair.
Cole remained silent.
For once, he didn’t remind me that Gavin had been married.
He didn’t have to.
The envelope did it for him.
“He really was going to leave,” I whispered.
Cole’s gaze returned to me.
“You don’t know that.”
“He booked the cabin again.”
“That proves he planned another weekend.”
The words were blunt, but not cruel.
I hated him for saying what I already knew.
“He wrote that we wouldn’t have to lie.”
“Gavin wrote a lot of things.”
I folded the paper carefully along the existing crease.
“You could let me have one memory without destroying it.”
“I’m not trying to destroy anything.”
“You never have to try.”
Cole exhaled through his nose and moved toward the door.
“I brought the bag. That’s all I came to do.”
My phone vibrated on the table.
The sound made both of us look at it.
Unknown number.
A message appeared on the screen.
**Did you find the wedding photographs?**
My blood turned cold.
Cole saw my face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Another message arrived.
**Now you know he was never leaving her.**
Cole crossed the room before I could hide the phone.
“Who is that?”
“I don’t know.”
He picked it up.
“Give it back.”
He read the messages, his expression changing.
“How long has this been happening?”
“Since before he died.”
Cole looked at me sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“The first photograph came the night I found out about the children.”
“What photograph?”
“Gavin with Natalie and the kids.”
“And you thought I sent it.”
“Yes.”
“I told you I didn’t.”
“I know.”
He scrolled through the older messages.
I should have stopped him.
Instead, I watched his face harden as he read each one.
The photograph of Natalie crying in Gavin’s arms.
The warnings that he lied to both of us.
The call from the silent woman after his death.
Cole placed the phone on the table.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Who was I supposed to tell?”
“The police.”
“For sending me pictures of a married man with his wife?”
“For continuing after he died.”
“I didn’t think they’d care.”
“They might if someone has been watching you.”
The words sent a chill across my skin.
“They were watching Gavin.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Whoever it is knew where he was.”
“And where you were.”
I looked toward the windows.
The curtains were open.
I stood and closed them.
Cole watched me.
“Did Natalie send them?” I asked.
His expression changed so quickly that I almost missed it.
“No.”
“You didn’t even think about it.”
“Natalie has spent the last week trying to get her children out of bed. She isn’t doing this.”
“She knew there was someone else.”
“That doesn’t mean she knew you.”
“Gavin said she didn’t.”
“And now you believe him?”
I flinched.
Cole’s face tightened.
“Block the number.”
“It’s already hidden.”
“Change yours.”
“I can’t change my phone number every time someone decides I deserve punishment.”
“This isn’t punishment. It could be harassment.”
“You seemed comfortable punishing me.”
His eyes met mine.
“That isn’t the same.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
The certainty in his voice filled the apartment.
Cole picked up my phone again and entered his number.
“What are you doing?”
“If they contact you again, send it to me.”
I stared at the new contact on the screen.
**Cole Bennett.**
“I don’t need you protecting me.”
“I’m not protecting you.”
“Then why?”
“Because if someone close to Gavin knew about the affair, I need to know who.”
“For Natalie?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
Of course it was.
Everything he did was for Gavin’s widow and children.
I was only another problem that might eventually reach them.
Cole moved toward the door.
“Don’t respond to the messages.”
“I haven’t.”
“Don’t delete them either.”
“You’re very demanding inside other people’s apartments.”
He opened the door.
I looked down at the photographs on the table.
“Cole.”
He stopped.
“Why did he keep those at the station?”
His shoulders stiffened.
I expected him to say because Gavin was ashamed.
Instead, he looked back at me.
“Maybe because it was the only place where both versions of his life existed.”
Then he left.
I locked the door behind him and returned to the table.
Gavin’s photographs showed a man who had looked happy with me.
The storage unit showed a man who had been happy with his family.
Maybe both were real.
Maybe neither was.
My phone vibrated again.
This time, the message came from Cole.
**Lock the windows too.**
I looked toward the closed curtains.
Then I checked every window in the apartment.
Not because I trusted Cole.
Because Gavin had taught me what happened when I ignored the things that made me afraid.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD