“The door was open.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Maybe you forgot to lock it.”
“Mrs.
Halvorsen heard you in here yesterday.”
That landed.
His jaw tightened.
“Your neighbor doesn’t know what she heard.”
“She heard a man shouting my name while I was at work.”
He took one step toward me.
I raised the phone.
“Don’t.”
His eyes went straight to it.
“Are you recording me?”
I didn’t answer.
He smiled, but there was nothing friendly in it.
“You really want to make this into something? Think carefully.”
The sentence chilled me because it was so familiar in spirit.
He had used variations of it at work whenever someone questioned him.
Think carefully.
Don’t overreact.
You don’t want this misunderstood.
Now he was saying it in my bedroom after entering with a copied key.
“Put the phone down,” he said.
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“Marcus, I’m trying to help you.”
I glanced at the open drawers around him.
“By searching my bedroom?”
“I was concerned.
You call in sick, then I see you drive away.
You’ve been distracted at work.
Secretive.”
“That gives you the right to enter my house?”
“Stop twisting this.”
“How many times have you been here?”
He said nothing.
I asked again.
“How many times?”
His face tightened.
“A few.”
The words were almost casual.
My stomach turned.
“Yesterday?”
No answer.
“Mrs.
Halvorsen heard you yesterday.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“I needed to know what you were doing.”
There it was.
Not an explanation.
An admission.
“Why?”
“Because you’re planning something.”
“Planning what?”
“Leaving.
