On the back, six words had been written in black ink:
“Now you will do exactly this.”
What do you think Julian wanted from me?
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PART 2
Beneath the photograph was another sheet of paper.
At first, the words blurred in front of me.
Then I forced myself to read them.
Transfer twenty-five thousand dollars before noon.
If you contact the police, the photographs will be sent to your children, your neighbors, and everyone in your address book.
At the bottom was a bank account number.
My hands began to shake.
Twenty-five thousand dollars was almost everything Richard had left in my emergency savings.
For several minutes, I sat on the edge of the hotel bed, unable to move.
The room still carried the faint scent of Julian’s cologne.
Only hours earlier, that scent had made me feel safe.
Now it made me sick.
I looked at the photographs again.
There was nothing graphic in them.
But they were private.
One showed Julian leading me through the lobby with his hand resting on my lower back.
Another showed me sitting beside him on the bed, smiling at something he had said.
The final photograph showed me sleeping beneath the blanket.
He did not need anything scandalous.
He only needed to create a story.
A lonely sixty-two-year-old widow.
A man twenty-eight years younger.
A hotel room.
People would fill in the rest themselves.
I imagined my daughter’s silence.
My son’s embarrassed expression.
My neighbors whispering behind curtains.
For one terrible moment, I reached for the hotel phone to call my bank.
Then I stopped.
Why was I ashamed?
I had not betrayed anyone.
I had not hurt anyone.
I had wanted warmth.
I had wanted passion.
I had wanted to feel desired after eight years of being treated as though that part of my life had ended with my husband’s funeral.
The person who should have been ashamed was Julian.
Not me.
I picked up the photograph again.
That was when I noticed something strange.
In the mirror behind the bed, there was a faint reflection.
Julian had not taken the photograph.
A second person had been standing near the bathroom door, holding a phone.
He had not worked alone.
The hotel telephone rang.
The sound made me jump.
I answered slowly.
“Evelyn,” Julian said.
His voice was no longer warm.
There was no tenderness in it.
No charm.
Only impatience.
“You read the instructions?”
“Yes.”
“Then follow them.”
“You planned this from the beginning.”
