CHAPTER SEVEN
NORA
Day Three
The photograph of Rhett and the little goalie is perfect.
I hate it on principle.
At my studio, I enlarge the image until it fills the monitor. Rhett is crouched with his elbows on his knees, listening while the girl explains something with both hands. He is not smiling for the camera. He is smiling because she is serious and he respects seriousness in small people.
Behind him, Lucas pretends to clutch his heart over the threat to his job.
The frame contains no husband who erased me. No captain trained to turn emotion into strategy. Only a man I know too well and not well enough.
I flag the image for the foundation archive, then unflag it.
Then flag it again.
My phone lights with an email from Ingrid Dahl.
The contract is forty-two pages, denominated in euros, and more generous than anything I have ever been offered.
Six months. Four countries. Women's professional and community hockey, from national-team camps to frozen outdoor rinks above the Arctic Circle.
Full creative credit. Travel paid. A gallery exhibition at the end.
Lead photographer.
The title makes my chest expand and ache at the same time.
Two years ago, I would have accepted before Ingrid finished asking. Instead, I had looked at Rhett's schedule, his first season as captain, and the impossible hope in his face when he said he needed one person who knew him before the title.
I told myself love sometimes required timing.
I did not notice that the timing was always his.
There is a knock at the studio door.
The security officer outside checks the camera and opens it for a courier carrying a narrow white box.
No return address.
"Did you order something?" the officer asks.
"No."
He sets it on the worktable and steps back while I cut the tape.
Inside is a camera lens shattered down the center.
A printed card rests beneath it.
STOP DISTRACTING HIM.
For several seconds, all I can hear is the hum of my monitor.
The officer takes the box, calls the police, and asks me to move into the locked office. My hands remain steady until he says the word threat.
Then I look at my own cameras lined on the shelf and imagine someone standing in the alley, watching which lights I turn off.
Maren arrives first. She is wearing courtroom heels and fury.
"You are staying with me," she says.
"I already am."
"More aggressively."
Tessa arrives twenty minutes later with team security and a detective. Rhett does not come.
I notice.
I resent noticing.
While the detective photographs the box, Tessa stands beside me in the office. "Rhett knows."
"Did he send everyone except himself?"
"He asked whether you were physically safe. I said yes. He asked whether his presence would make you feel safer or cornered. I said I didn't know. He said the agreement means he stays away unless you ask."
Something in my chest twists.
I wanted him to respect the boundary.
I also wanted him to tear through it because I was frightened.
Both desires are unfair. Only one is safe.
"Where is he?" I ask.
"Across the street. In his car."
I close my eyes.
Of course he found a way to stay away without leaving.
"Tell him to go back to the hotel."
Tessa studies me. "Do you want me to tell him you said that, or do you want me to tell him you're safe?"
I hate competent women.
"Both."
She sends the message.
Through the narrow office window, I can see the edge of the street. A black SUV pulls away three minutes later.
He listened.
The detective believes the box was mailed locally. The broken lens is cheap, purchased secondhand. The card contains no fingerprints. They will request surveillance footage and monitor future deliveries.
By evening, the studio feels contaminated.
Maren packs my hard drives while I stare at Ingrid's contract.
"Take the job," she says.
"You haven't read it."
"I don't need to. Your face read it for me."
"The foundation campaign—"
"Ends a week before you leave."
"The divorce—"
"Can proceed while you are abroad."
The word divorce still feels like stepping where I expected a stair.
Maren closes my equipment case. "You are allowed to make a decision that is not organized around Rhett Callahan. Even now. Especially now."
I open the signature page.
My phone vibrates with a message routed through Tessa.
RHETT: I am told you are safe. I will not come. Security will remain as long as you want, regardless of what happens between us. You do not need to respond.
No apology buried inside it. No plea. No claim that danger proves I need him.
I type nothing.
Then I sign Ingrid's contract electronically.
The confirmation appears on-screen.
For the first time in three days, my future contains something larger than the worst sentence my husband ever said.