"I'll have my secretary pull the security footage right now. That lipstick mark was from a colleague who bumped into me during a meeting today. It was an accident."
I reached over and pressed the phone down.
"Don't bother."
The tension drained from Jesse's body all at once.
I stood and walked toward the small rest room attached to his office.
"You should stay too. Keep everyone company. It's a critical phase. They need their leader here."
Jesse lit up, agreeing over and over, practically tripping over his own words.
I lay down on the bed in the rest room. Through the door, I could just make out the secretary's lowered voice.
"Mr. Gilbert, I think your wife has calmed down."
Calmed down?
I closed my eyes.
No. I just didn't care anymore.
I lay on that bed all night without sleeping.
Jesse probably assumed I wouldn't remember.
But Edith Walker's signature lipstick shade, the one she always wore back then, was the exact crimson smeared across his collar yesterday.
Early the next morning, before the sun was up, Jesse came back.
Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He still smelled faintly of cigarettes. But in his hand was a bag from my favorite breakfast place.