…”medical records. She didn’t want to scare you. She made me promise not to tell.”
It was such a perfect answer that I almost believed it. My mom had been worried about my health ever since my aunt got sick. It made sense.
But I picked up my phone and called her right there at the table. “Mom, have you been coming to my apartment during the day?”
“What? No, honey. I haven’t been to your place since your birthday.”
I hung up. My fiancé was still holding my hand. He let go of it very slowly. “She’s lying to protect you,” he said. “She’s embarrassed.”
I didn’t argue. I said I was tired and went to bed. Then, after he left for work the next morning, I deleted every guest code, changed my password, and set up a small camera on my bookshelf. Then I created one new code, labeled it “Guest 3,” and gave it the same numbers as before, because I had a feeling.
At 2:10 p.m. on Thursday, the app pinged. Guest 3 had entered.
It was him. Still in his work lanyard. He walked past my dog without petting her, opened my desk drawer, and started photographing my bank statements, page by page. Then he opened my journal and read it for twenty minutes, taking pictures of the pages, until his phone buzzed and he left.
I watched it from my office, with my hand over my mouth. Later my lawyer found out why. He had over forty thousand dollars in credit card debt that he’d never mentioned, and he’d been planning to bring up “joint finances” right after the wedding. He’d been studying what I had, and how I felt about it.
I put his ring in an envelope with a printout of the lock log and left it on his car. I didn’t write a note. I didn’t need to.
My mom came over that weekend and stayed for dinner. When she left, I handed her a brand-new code. “You’re the only guest I’ve got now,” I told her. She laughed. My dog walked her all the way to the door.
