Senses honed even more than normal, Brett said, “Did you give her cause to misinterpret something?”

“Hell, no! Wait.” Jeff crossed his arms, trapping his pool cue against his body. “Are you asking me if I’ve been unfaithful to my wife?”

“You wouldn’t be the first guy...”

“No!” Taking hold of his cue stick, he stood. “I don’t even flirt with other women, just to make certain I don’t find myself in something I don’t mean to be in. I love my wife, Brett. I thought you of all people knew that.”

“I do.” Feeling a tug on emotions that were better off staying dormant, Brett stood toe-to-toe with his friend. “I do, Jeff. I’m just asking because the last I knew, Chloe felt the same way about you. You two...you’re that couple that makes it till you’re ninety and then dies within a day of each other because one can’t live without the other.”

Jeff’s chin dropped to his chest. And then he stood straight. “I have to believe she still feels the same way,” Jeff said. “That’s what keeps me going.”

He thought about what he wanted to ask. Speaking slowly as he chose his words carefully. “Have...you... Do you...have any reason...to think... Could there be...someone else? For her?”

Shaking his head, Jeff headed to his beer waiting on the bar. Helped himself to a big swig. And Brett, tense and feeling a little angry, missed his next shot.

“I’m going to be honest,” Jeff said, remaining by the bar, in spite of the fact that it was his turn. “Not that she ever gave me reason to doubt her, but after she left I went through everything. Searched her computer, her drawers. Her social-media accounts. I felt like a damned creep, but I just had to know, you know?”

“And?”

“Nothing. My wife is as sweet and loyal and honest as we both know her to be. Hell, she hadn’t even made a purchase she hadn’t told me about.”

“So why up and leave? You having financial problems? Something that just overwhelmed her?”

“Stocks are up and down. You know the business. But no. Our personal portfolio has enough safe investments to keep us secure.”

“What about work? Anything life-altering happening there?”

“Like, are any of the traders into something they shouldn’t be, you mean?”

It happened far more than Brett would have figured before he’d gotten into the watchdog business. “Something like that.”

“We’re clean,” he said. “We run audits with an independent company, just to make sure.”

One by one, Jeff was shooting holes in the theories Brett had come up with to explain Chloe’s leaving her husband and moving in with Ella.

And not telling Jeff where she was.

“Where is she, by the way?” he asked now, justifying the duplicity implicit in asking a question to which he knew the answer with the idea that all he wanted was to help Jeff.

Jeff took a shot. And then another. He sank four balls in a row, leaving only Brett’s striped balls on the table, and motioned to a side pocket as his call for the eight ball.

He sank that, too. Leaned his pool cue against the table, pulled the rack off its hook on the wall, reached under the table for the balls and began placing them inside.

When the fully racked balls were ready for Jeff to break for the next game, he faced Brett.

“I don’t know where she is.”

Brett could not doubt the sincerity of the response.

And knew an odd second of relief that Ella’s secret was safe.

Because he was still protective of his ex-wife? And because the secret meant a lot to her?

Ella—and her secrets—were no longer in his control, or of his concern.

“She just up and left and didn’t tell you where she was going?”

“Yes.” Jeff, at six-two and two hundred pounds was a big man, but lean. Almost to the point of skinny. With his sandy-blond hair and freckles, his glasses, he looked like the stereotypical guy next door.

“What about her mother? Isn’t Chloe’s mother in Florida?”

“Yes, and Chloe said she isn’t there and begged me not to call her mother and get her all upset. I’ve agreed not to look for her, and in exchange, she’s agreed to answer her cell phone each and every time I call. Or, at the very least, call me right back. I need to know that she’s safe.”

Ella hadn’t told him that Chloe and Jeff were in constant contact. Brett was glad to hear it.

“She hasn’t told her mother she left you?”

“Nope.” Pulling back, Jeff shoved his cue stick forward, making perfect contact with the cue ball, slamming it into the freshly racked triangle of balls, spreading them all over the table. Two fell. A solid and a stripe.

“I’ll take the stripes,” Jeff said, proceeding to sink another three balls.

Brett studied the solids. He was likely only going to get one shot at the game. Not that he cared about the fifty dollars balanced there to taunt them, but because he was a guy, and guys didn’t like to lose. Not even to good friends.

Jeff missed a nearly impossible shot. Reached for his beer.

“I’d say it’s a good sign, then.” Brett stood, watching Jeff rather than the pool balls. “If she was looking to do anything permanent, she’d let people know.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Jeff’s expression relaxed.

And Brett cleared the table.

* * *

CHLOE WAS DUSTING the living room when Ella let herself into the apartment. Cody sat on the floor with a line of little cars around him, watching Nick Jr. reruns.

“El! El!” The little boy jumped up when he heard her, running over to hug her knees and then to grab her finger. “Sit,” he said, pointing to his cars.

“In a minute, buddy,” she told him. “Auntie El needs to get out of her work clothes, ’kay?”

He was already staring at the television again as he nodded his little blond head. The boy’s constant need for technical stimulation bothered her, but raising Cody wasn’t her business. Loving him was.

Chloe asked how her day was.

And didn’t meet her gaze.

Motioning down the hall, Ella headed back to her bedroom and waited for Chloe to follow her.

“Did you go to the Stand?” she asked.

Chloe nodded. And started to dust her dresser. Ella did her cleaning on her days off. Which started tomorrow. “Cody cried when I told him it was time to go. He didn’t want to leave.”

“But you didn’t like it?” she asked, pulling her stained scrub top over her head and tossing it in the hamper in her en-suite bathroom.

Swinging around, Chloe met her gaze. “I loved it, El,” she said. But the moisture in her eyes didn’t seem to carry the same message. The woman turned back to the furniture.

“But?”

“No but. I have so many ideas, and Lila gave me a budget and told me I can have carte blanche. There are at least three cooks for every meal and other women who do all of the dishes. It’s a dream opportunity. She even offered to put in for a small salary for me since I’ve never been a resident, but I don’t need the money.”

Ella was glad to see Chloe enthused. If Chloe could make a life for herself here, the rest wouldn’t be as difficult.

She just wished she’d quit dusting and tell her what was wrong.

“Did you have a problem with one of the residents?”

“No! They were wonderful.” Chloe looked up again. “Everyone was so eager to help. Almost too eager.”

“They’ve all been through a lot,” Ella said, her pants following her top, and then her bra landed last. Pulling on a robe, she stepped out of her panties, too. “And everyone handles turmoil differently. Some are friendly and kind. Others lash out or withdraw...”

She’d done her homework.

“They were fine, El, really.”

Chloe was on to the nightstand. Carefully lifting. Dusting. Returning things to their proper positions.

“So what’s the problem?”

The smaller dresser got the rag. Then her rocker. And Ella stood there. Waiting.

Afraid Chloe might just dust her, too, she remained still as the other woman approached her. Stood eye to eye with her. “I’m one of them, aren’t I?”