Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
The next day, the phone rang from the cupholder of my car, and I glanced down.
The office. I knew who it was and why she was calling.
Unlike Cumberland, and even Howie to some extent, Dannika wasn’t buying my lies about going to client meetings.
She knew how I worked, and she knew something was up.
But I couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t explain to her what was going on when I still had no idea myself.
I pressed the volume button, silencing it, and stared into the large, glass windows of the restaurant.
It was raining outside, which I hoped would mean Ben would choose to stay home.
Instead, just thirty minutes after I left the apartment, he departed from the building with Gray in his arms. This time, instead of walking toward the park, they walked around the building and, for a brief moment, I lost sight of them.
Just as I started the car and made my way back down the street, his car pulled out.
I froze, panicked that he’d see me, but he didn’t seem to.
Instead, he pulled out like normal and headed in the opposite direction.
I stayed a car or two behind him, turning down separate streets and keeping a safe distance, but never losing sight of him completely.
He got on the interstate, headed toward Crestview, and I felt the last bit of hope collapse inside of me. I’d thought—hoped—he’d be going anywhere else, but he wasn’t. He was going to see her again. Finally, all my suspicions were confirmed. This was real. It was really happening.
He surprised me by taking an exit that was still a few miles shy of Crestview and pulling into a restaurant parking lot on the outskirts of Oceanside.
I pulled into a parking garage, inserting seven dollars in cash from my wallet, and took a spot near the edge.
I climbed from the car and stepped in front of the hood, looking out over the waist-high concrete partition.
I could see into the restaurant across the street, where Ben and Gray had taken a table near the window.
He was holding Gray against his chest, my son sleeping in his arms, and he watched out the window. Watched for her.
Fifteen minutes after they arrived, Kat showed up.
With each click of her heels across the concrete, inaudible from where I stood so many feet up, yet painful just the same, I felt my anger growing.
Ben was smiling when she walked in the restaurant, and he turned his back to me as I watched her approach him.
She sat down in the booth next to him, their skin touching.
It was killing me. My insides bubbled with anger and fear.
How long would it take him to leave me? How long had he been seeing her in the first place?
How dare she? How dare he? Would she tell him about seeing me at the salon?
Did she even know me? She had to know he had a wife.
He had a son, for crying out loud. Had he killed me off in some fantasy life with her?
I felt tears prick my eyes, but brushed them away, holding my phone up and snapping a picture of the two of them. I clicked on the lower left screen, pulling up the photo.
From this far away, the picture was blurry, misshapen, and dark from the glare on the glass.
It would never work. I needed to get down to their level.
Get closer. But I couldn’t chance them seeing me.
The warning Ty had given rang through my head.
I had to get proof before he found out I knew. I had to.
I stood, leaning against the concrete as I stared down at my husband, child, and the stranger, feeling sick.
I wanted to walk away, I was no use to anyone standing there, but I couldn’t make myself move.
I wanted to take my son away from him. How dare he bring him, the child I’d just had ripped from my womb, and share him with someone else? He was mine. Mine.
I snapped another, albeit blurry, photo of the three of them together, her practically hanging off his arm as she stared down at my son. One way or another, I was going to fix this. For me. For Gray.
My teeth ground down so hard I winced, releasing the tension. The waitress approached their table and took their orders. I could see the way she was looking at them, as if they were the perfect family.
To unknowing eyes, I knew that’s what they looked like.
To mine, they were a family destined to be torn apart. And mine would be the hands to do the tearing.