I watched her fingers twitch against the handle of her mug.

“His passport is missing from the safe,” I lied.

“And so is the title to the Volvo.”

Chloe’s eyes darted toward her phone, which lay flat on the table, tethered to my heavy black power bank.

The little green battery icon was pulsing.

*Three minutes remaining.*

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Chloe said.

She leaned back, trying to look detached, but her chest was rising and falling too quickly.

“He cares about you, Anne. He wouldn’t just run off.”

The hypocrisy of those words burned in my throat like acid.

I wanted to reach across the table and rip the scarf off her neck.

Instead, I looked down at my own hands, squeezing them together until my knuckles turned white.

“I called his office this morning,” I said.

“They said he took a leave of absence last week.”

Chloe stiffened.

This was news to her; I could see it in the sudden freeze of her shoulders.

“A leave of absence?” she repeated.

“Yes,” I said. “And the bank called about the joint savings account.”