Michael Mercer had always seemed like a man who had everything under control. He was a successful executive, a polished speaker, and the sort of person who could make a roomful of strangers feel that he was the most important person in it.
I had never seen him as a cruel man.
I was beginning to understand how little I knew about him.
“What happened today?” I asked.
Karen stared at her hands.
“He told me there’s another woman.”
My jaw tightened.
“How long?”
“He claims six months.”
“Do you believe him?”
She shook her head.
“Not anymore.”
Her voice became smaller.
“I found hotel charges from two years ago. Trips he said were business meetings. Restaurant bills from nights he told me he was working late.”
She pressed her lips together.
“He looked me in the eye and lied so easily that I started wondering whether I had imagined the entire marriage.”
