He had told me this trip was a simple guys’ weekend in northern Georgia before the chaos of year-end work. I had been in Seattle for a marketing conference and thought it would be romantic to meet him on my way back instead of going home first. We had been married four years. Lately he had seemed distracted, buried in money problems he kept insisting were temporary. I told myself surprising him might break whatever tension had settled between us.
The cabin was set back in the woods near Blue Ridge, with one porch light on and pickup trucks parked out front. I heard voices and laughter through the cracked kitchen window before I even reached the steps. I remember smiling to myself, adjusting my bag on my shoulder, and thinking how stunned Drew would look when I walked in.
I stopped dead.
Drew was in the living room, and his voice had that loose, careless tone people get after too much bourbon and too much confidence.
I’m serious, he said. If Lena vanished, that insurance money alone could wipe out my debt.Insurance
A man laughed. I later realized it was his friend Mason.
Or finally date her sister guilt-free.
More laughter.
Not shocked laughter. Comfortable laughter.
