Behind me, Victoria said, “This is becoming theatrical.”
Adrienne turned.
“Enough.”
There was anger in his voice now.
It had arrived too late to help me.
I opened the oak door.
October rain struck the front steps hard enough to bounce.
For a moment, I thought of my father in his hospital bed three years earlier. Adrienne sitting beside him at two in the morning. Adrienne listening patiently while Dad explained the proper way to season a cast-iron skillet because he was frightened and needed something ordinary to discuss.
That was the man I had married.
I turned back to the man beside the marble table.
“I never wanted your family’s diamonds,” I said. “I only wanted my husband to believe me.”
Then I left.
By the time I reached the end of the driveway, my hair had come loose.
Rain ran down my neck and into my shoes. I walked past the gatehouse without looking inside.
My phone was in the side pocket of my briefcase.
I did not take it out.
I could not yet endure hearing his voice.
Later, Marco told me what happened after the door closed.
Victoria said I would return by morning.
Adrienne told her to leave.
She began to protest, and he repeated himself so sharply that the second guard looked up.
Then he picked up my ring.
His hand shook.
The security phone rang while he was still holding it.
The operator downstairs had continued reviewing the footage despite the order to end the search.
He had found a gap in the version Adrienne had been shown.
Not a missing minute.
An entire missing camera.
“Sir,” the operator said, “before you speak to your wife again, you need to see who entered that corridor first.”
Adrienne turned toward the staircase.
Victoria had stopped halfway up.
The operator opened the recovered recording.
A figure stepped into view.
And Adrienne recognized the coat.
