THE VOICE NOTE
The voice note was still playing when Cole Mercer walked into the kitchen.
“Babe, you left your sports bra in my locker again. Tell your boring husband you’re working late tomorrow. We need to work on your ground game.”
A man’s laughter followed.
Then his wife laughed.
Cole stood motionless beside the refrigerator, one hand wrapped around a bottle of water.
He listened to the message a second time.
Not because he hadn’t understood it.
Because he was trying to understand how a woman who had shared fourteen years of her life with him could sound so comfortable lying about it.
Claire’s phone lay on the kitchen island. She had left it there while taking a shower, and the voice message had played automatically through its speaker.
Cole didn’t search through her messages. He didn’t need to.
The truth had walked into the room by itself.
