Chapter 3
TELL ME EVERYTHING
Brendan Frye picks up on the third ring.
Background noise—a saw or a compressor—cuts off like he stepped away from a job site.
“Frye.”
“Mr. Frye, this is Bridgette Logan.” I press my thumbnail hard into the edge of the kitchen counter. “You came to my house a few days ago about an unpaid invoice.”
A pause. When he speaks again his voice has shifted—that careful recalibration I watched happen on my front porch when he figured out I didn’t know. “Mrs. Logan. Yeah.”
“I need to ask you some things about the renovation. About my husband.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“No.”
He lets out a breath. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
I pull a pen from the junk drawer and flip over an old envelope, pressing the tip to the blank back. Randall left for the office an hour ago. His rinsed coffee mug is sitting in the sink the way he always leaves it.
“When did the project start?” I ask.
“First walkthrough was about ten months ago. Your husband contacted me through the LLC—Millstone Holdings. Said he needed a full gut reno on a luxury condo unit. High-end finishes, custom everything.”
I write 10 months on the envelope and underline it so hard the pen tears through the paper. Ten months and I never caught a whiff of it. I set the pen down. Pick it back up. My hand needs something to hold.
“How often was he there?”
“Every couple weeks at minimum. Sometimes more once we got into finish work—he had opinions about tile layout, cabinet hardware, stain colors on the built-ins. He was hands-on.”
Every couple of weeks. All those evenings Randall came home late and told me David had him working on Blankenship—how many were actually about tile layouts and cabinet hardware in a condo I didn’t know existed?
My throat aches. Something deep and dull, like pressing on a bruise.
I swallow against it and keep writing. Every 2 wks. Hands-on.
“Did he say what the condo was for?”
“Investment property. That’s what he told me—high-end rental for the luxury market.”
I write investment property on the envelope and put a question mark beside it. The pen is shaking on the downstrokes.
“When did the payments stop?”
“Final draw was due at punch list completion. That was three months ago. I invoiced the LLC, followed up twice by email, called the number he gave me—voicemail every time. Sent a certified letter to the mailing address on the LLC filing, and that turned out to be your house.”
I push away from the counter and pace toward the window. Three months. Randall checks his phone before his feet hit the floor every morning. Returns every client email within the hour. But this guy? Three months of dead silence until he showed up at our front door.
“Was he always alone?” I ask. “When he came to the unit.”
I stop pacing. Press my back against the fridge and hold still.
“Early on, yeah. Demo phase, just him and me going over plans.” A door closes on Brendan’s end. The wind noise goes dead. “After that, there was usually somebody else.”
My fingers go cold around the phone.
“A woman,” he says. “Younger. She started showing up around the time we got into finish work. Paint colors, fixtures, layout stuff.”
I grab the back of a kitchen chair. The wood bites into my palm.
“She had opinions,” he continues. “Specific ones. Wanted the kitchen island angled a certain way. Wanted the bedroom closet redesigned from what we’d originally spec’d. She picked the tile for the master bath herself.”
My eyes are burning. I blink hard and stare at the ceiling and dig my nails into the chair back because I am not going to cry on the phone with a stranger. A woman was standing in that condo picking out tile. Choosing closet layouts. Making that space hers—with my husband right there beside her.
“Your husband deferred to her on everything,” Brendan says. “His line was ‘whatever she wants.’ I heard it at least a dozen times.”
Whatever she wants. The kitchen blurs. I press my forehead against the cool wood of the cabinet and hold there, breathing through my teeth, waiting for my chest to stop caving in.
“To be honest, Mrs. Logan?” Brendan’s voice goes lower. “I thought she was his wife.”
My knees buckle. I catch myself on the counter, lock my elbows, lean my whole weight into my palms until the granite edge cuts a line across both hands.
I thought she was his wife.
Because they looked like that. The way they moved through that space—her choosing, him approving—it looked like a marriage. It looked like what I thought I had.
“Mrs. Logan? You there?”
“I’m here.” The words come out clean. Automatic. “Can you describe her?”
“Dark hair. Younger than him. I don’t remember much else.” He pauses. “She set up a ring light once. Middle of a walkthrough, right there in the kitchen. Filmed herself talking into her phone for about ten minutes. Your husband stood off to the side waiting.”
Ring light. Content creator. Sienna. The woman whose Instagram I’ve been staring at for two days—the marble countertops, the sunset balcony, the caption thanking a man she won’t name for giving her everything.
My sadness catches fire.
It happens fast—one second my eyes are burning and the next my jaw is clenched so hard my back teeth grind.
She was choosing hardware while I was shelving books.
Redesigning her closet while I was planning rosemary chicken and candles for a man who was spending my inheritance on Italian marble for someone else.
“Thank you, Mr. Frye.” My voice belongs to a woman I don’t recognize yet. Hard. Flat. “I appreciate your time.”
“I don’t know what’s happening with you and your husband. Not my business. But I’m owed forty-two thousand dollars for premium work, and if he thinks going dark is going to make me disappear, he’s wrong.”
“You’ll get your money. Every dollar.”
“I hope so. You’ve got my number.”
The line goes dead. I set the phone on the counter.
The envelope is still sitting there. My handwriting is jagged, barely readable. I pick it up and rip it in half. Then quarters. I keep tearing until the pieces are too small to grip, confetti on the granite, and the sound of ripping paper is the most satisfying thing I’ve felt in days.
I am not going to cry in this kitchen. He doesn’t get that.
I open the notes app on my phone and type everything Brendan told me—every detail, every phrase, dated and time-stamped.
Then I sweep the paper scraps into the trash and pour Randall’s leftover coffee down the drain.
He’ll be home for dinner. And I’ll be ready.
The chicken sizzles when it hits the hot pan. I press it flat with the spatula and hold it there, watching butter foam around the edges. Rosemary and garlic fill the kitchen.
My hands haven’t shaken in over an hour. I stood at this counter and squeezed my fists open-closed, open-closed until the tremor died, and then I started cooking.
The front door opens.
“Something smells incredible.” Randall’s jacket lands on the back of a chair. He loosens his tie on the walk down the hallway and comes up behind me at the stove, his hand on the small of my back. My whole body goes rigid for half a second before I force it to soften.
“Lemon rosemary chicken,” I say without turning around.
“You went all out.” He reaches past me for the wine bottle. Pours two glasses. “What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion. We said more dinners.” I flip the chicken. Golden brown. “Sit down. It’s ready.”
We carry everything to the table. He cuts in, takes a bite, closes his eyes.
“God, that’s good. Why don’t you make this more often?”
“Because you’re never home.”
It comes out sharper than I meant. His eyebrows go up.
“Ouch.” But he’s grinning. “Fair point. I deserve that.”
You have no idea what you deserve. I take a sip of wine so the words don’t come out of my mouth.
“Tell me about your day,” he says.
“Quiet. Restocked the new releases, helped Natasha rearrange the window display.” I cut a piece of chicken and eat it slowly. Set my fork down. “I was thinking about Gram’s cabin today.”
Nothing changes. His posture stays loose, his grip on the fork stays easy, his face stays exactly the same. “Yeah? What brought that up?”
“Old photo on my phone. You and me on the dock, that first summer. The coffee mugs.”
“I remember.” He grins. “You burned the pancakes every morning on that stove.”
“Because it only had one temperature and it was volcanic.” My mouth does something that’s supposed to be a smile. My face fights it the whole way. “I miss it. The lake. The quiet. Sitting on the dock before anyone else was up.”
“I miss it too.” He nods, chewing. “But the taxes were brutal, and the foundation work it needed—”
“I know. We made the right call.” I run my finger along the stem of my wine glass. Slow. Casual. “How are the investments doing? From the cabin proceeds?”
His fork doesn’t pause. “Really well, actually. Galen shifted us into a diversified growth strategy about six months ago. Returns are beating projections.”
Galen. I have never heard that name in my life. My nails dig into my thigh under the table.
“That’s great.” I nod. Smile. My jaw aches. “Could I look at the account sometime? I’d just love to see where we stand.”
The tiniest pause. Half a second, maybe less, and then he’s past it. “Sure. Absolutely. I’ll pull up the statements this weekend, we can go through the whole portfolio together.”
He won’t. This weekend will come and he’ll be busy or tired or he’ll say he forgot, and the request will dissolve the way every question I’ve ever asked about our money has dissolved—quietly, painlessly, without me even noticing it was gone.
“I’d like that,” I say. The smile on my face feels like holding a door shut against a flood.
“Hey.” He reaches across the table. Covers my hand with his. His thumb traces a slow circle on my knuckle, and my stomach lurches so hard I almost jerk away. I hold still. “The money is working for us, Bridgette. For our future. For when we have kids.”
For when we have kids.
The exact words. The same five words from a year ago, when he spread a spreadsheet across this table and explained in his patient voice why selling Gram’s cabin was the smart move.
I signed the papers because of those words.
I handed over the dock and the birch trees and the water at dawn, and he looked me in the eyes and promised he would take care of it.
He is looking at me the exact same way right now, doing the exact same thing with his hand, and if I didn’t know better I would believe every word.
Galen doesn’t exist. Neither does the growth strategy. The only thing that’s real is a four-hundred-and-ten-thousand-dollar condo with marble countertops and a woman named Sienna filming herself in the kitchen my grandmother’s cabin paid for.
“That’s really good to hear,” I say. I lace my fingers through his. My pulse is hammering so hard I’m sure he can feel it in my fingertips, but he doesn’t react. “I just want to make sure we’re on track.”
“We’re on track.” He squeezes my hand. “I promise.”
I pull back and pick up my fork. Force another bite down. My whole body is screaming at me to flip this table and ask him who Sienna is and watch his face when he realizes I know.
He tells me about a restaurant opening downtown.
I say we should try it. He tells me David sent some email that was apparently hilarious and I laugh because my mouth remembers how.
The whole time I’m watching him and there’s nothing—not a flicker, not a flinch, not one moment where he looks like a man who just lied to his wife’s face.
The lies come out in the same voice, with the same face, and I can’t tell them apart.
I don’t know how long this has been happening.
That’s the part that makes my hands ball into fists under the table—not the condo or the woman but the sheer ease of it.
How many dinners across this table has he fed me a lie I swallowed without tasting?
How many times has he touched my hand to make me stop asking?
After dinner he loads the dishwasher. I wipe down the counters. He hums something under his breath, sleeves rolled up, racking plates like a man with nothing on his conscience. I watch him from the corner of my eye and something hot and sharp twists behind my ribs.
“Going to read for a bit,” I say.
“Be up in a while. Few emails to knock out.”
I walk upstairs. Close the bedroom door. Sit on the edge of the bed and press my hands flat against my thighs because the shaking is back and I need it to stop.
I can’t catch him across a dinner table.
I can sit there asking careful questions and smiling until my face cracks and I will never get ahead of him.
He is better at this than I am—managing numbers and people and the version of reality everyone else gets to see.
That’s his whole career. Lying is just the home version.
I need someone who follows money the way Randall hides it.