Page 23 of Ravaged With You

“You wanted a divorce because he’d become distant?”

I shake my head. “No. Well, yes. It started years ago, really. Long before this.”

“We don’t know what this is. Much less when it started.”

I swallow, realizing that he’s right. “Fair enough. Originally, it was—oh, hell. I think originally it was me. I love Mel—I do. Did. I—” I have to take a breath and pull myself together. “I guess I realized pretty early on that we shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. It was a lot of little things. I tried to make it work, but I guess he felt it, too, because we grew apart. It was such a mess, you know, because we’d been great friends in college, and then…”

I trail off, my voice shaky. I hate spilling all of this onto Red. On the one hand, he was the person who knew us best of all. On the other hand, if he hadn’t joined the military, it might have been us who’d walked down that aisle.

“I get it,” he says gently. “Relationships aren’t easy, and most people can’t point to when they shifted off course.”

With a sigh, I drag my fingers though my hair. I’m wearing it long these days, and I twirl one strand around my finger idly as I gather my thoughts. “I told you I’d assumed he was having an affair. And maybe he was. But maybe that wasn’t it at all, maybe it was because he gotten involved with the wrong people.”

“You may have a point. But all that means is that we need to dig into what was going on with him. If it was an affair, whoever he was with might know something. Hell, they might be involved themselves. What made you think that he was cheating? Was there something specific, I mean, that made you think affair rather than that he was simply pulling away?” He frowns. “Although I guess there’s nothing simple about that.”

“There’s not,” I agree. “But are you telling me you never saw signs that he was cheating?” It’s a question I haven’t asked Red before. I’m not sure why not. After all, he’s been one of my closest friends for years. And he spent more time with Mel than I did.

So why hadn’t I gone to him and asked if he thought my husband was cheating on me? I don’t know. Or maybe I do know.

Maybe I didn’t care to know the answer.

I realize he hasn’t answered, and when I glance over, he’s looking right back at me. I swallow, suddenly extremely self-conscious. “Well?” I prod.

“No, I didn’t catch any of that kind of vibe. All I knew was that he seemed off, you know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“We need something tangible. We need a place to start looking.”

I raise a brow. “Well, we have his phone. Shouldn’t we start there?”

He chuckled. “We should, and we will. But it was in their possession, and they had the passcode. So I’m assuming they’ve already given it a once over.”

“You know what they say about assumptions.”

He tilts his head in acknowledgement. “True.”

“And to be honest, I don’t have a better idea. His phone would be my first suggestion. He rarely answered calls if we were together. And if he was on a call when I walked into the room, he’d end it abruptly. Maybe we can look at the numbers he was calling. Or maybe he’s got a contact that says Sexy Sidepiece or some such bullshit. After all, he kept his phone locked. Not like I was going to see it, right?”

I realize I’ve been ranting, my words popping out of my mouth with the force of my anger.

“All good points,” he says. “In fact, that may be why they gave me the phone and didn’t just send the video.”

“Because they think one of us might notice something odd, whereas they might overlook it?”

“It’s as good a guess as any.”

“So what should we do? Go sit on the sofa and start paging through it?”

“Yes,” he says. “But not now. We need to get some sleep. And I want to go to Stark Security in the morning.”

“The alarm system,” I say. “They shouldn’t have been able to disable the safety protocols so easily.”

“That, but also the phone.”

I shake my head, not understanding.

“If they can do an exact clone of it, you and I can both have a copy to review and compare notes on. And I’ll ask them to run all the incoming and outgoing phone numbers through their databases to see if anything pops.”