How I caught my man cheating on me

I went home.

I picked up Lucky. Buried my face in his fur. He smelled like warmth and dog shampoo and home—all the things that were supposed to be safe. He licked my chin, sensing something, his brown eyes wide and worried.

I couldn't sit still.

So I put Lucky in the car and drove to a pet grooming salon near the office. Not because he needed a haircut—I'd just gotten him trimmed last week—but because I needed an excuse. A reason to be in that part of town at five o'clock on a Tuesday when Daniel would be getting off work.

I needed to see him leave the building. I needed to see where he went.

The groomer gave me a look—"Didn't you just bring him in?"—but I smiled and said I wanted his fur a little shorter for summer. She shrugged and got to work.

By the time Lucky was done, it was almost six. I put him in the passenger seat, rolled the windows down, and parked in a spot with a clear view of the building's parking garage exit.

Then I waited.

* * *

Eleanor's car came out first.

A silver BMW. Way too expensive for a secretary. Way too expensive for a mid-level anything, honestly. I watched it turn left, and before I even made the decision, I was following her.

I don't know why. I had no plan. No logic. Just a pull in my gut, like a fishhook behind my navel, dragging me forward.

She drove for about twenty minutes, into a quiet residential neighborhood—nice houses, big lawns, the kind of place where people have sprinkler systems on timers and book clubs on Thursdays. She pulled into the driveway of a two-story house with a white picket fence and a garden that looked like it belonged in a magazine.

I parked across the street. Lucky pressed his nose to the window, curious about the new smells.

What was I doing? Following a woman home like some kind of stalker? This was insane. This was beneath me.

I was about to put the car in drive and leave when I saw it.

Daniel's Mercedes.

Turning into the neighborhood.

Pulling into the same driveway.

The world stopped.

Everything went silent. The birds. The wind. Even Lucky went still, like the air itself had frozen.

I watched Daniel's car stop in front of Eleanor's house. I pressed my hand to my chest because my heart was beating so hard it hurt, physically hurt, like something inside me was trying to break out.

I picked up my phone. Dialed his number.

He picked up on the second ring. "Claire bear. What's up?"

Casual. Easy. Not a trace of guilt.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Just left the office. Swinging by a colleague's place to grab an important file. Marketing needs it ASAP. I'll be home in an hour."

"Whose place?"

"Eleanor's."

He said it like it was nothing. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"She has some market research docs I need. Won't take long."

My lungs released. Just barely.

I watched his car pull out of the driveway a few minutes later and disappear down the street.

Shortly after, Eleanor came out in Lululemon joggers and a tank top, earbuds in, and started running. Just a woman going for an evening jog. Nothing unusual. Nothing suspicious.

I hated myself. I hated the sick, crawling feeling in my chest. I hated that I'd followed an innocent woman home and sat in my car like a deranged private investigator.

I was about to start the engine when Lucky launched himself out the window.

* * *

"Lucky! LUCKY!"

I scrambled out of the car, chasing him across the street. He was fast—way too fast for a dog with legs that short—and before I could grab him, he was on Eleanor's front lawn.

Peeing.

Just standing there, leg up, marking the grass like he owned the place.

And my blood turned to ice.

Lucky had a thing. Every pet owner knows their dog has things—weird little habits that don't make sense to anyone else. Lucky's thing was territorial marking. But he was extremely specific about it. He only peed on our lawns. Our home lawn. Our vacation house lawn. Properties where Daniel lived.

Never at a park. Never at a friend's house. Never on a stranger's grass. Only Daniel's territory.

The pet communicator we'd hired once had laughed about it. "Lucky sees himself and Daniel as rival males. He marks every spot that smells like Daniel. Every place Daniel claims, Lucky claims right back."

We'd thought it was hilarious.

I wasn't laughing now.

I stood on the sidewalk, staring at my dog on Eleanor Whitfield's lawn, and the ground tilted beneath me. Like the whole world had shifted thirty degrees and I was the only one who noticed.

I scooped up Lucky. Put him in the car. Locked the doors.

Then I got back out.

I walked up Eleanor's front path like a woman in a dream. I didn't know what I was doing. Didn't know what I was looking for. My body moved on its own, pulled by something deeper than thought.

I reached the front door.

A digital keypad lock.

My fingers moved before my brain caught up. I punched in four numbers. The same four numbers that opened my own front door.

Lucky's birthday.

The lock beeped. The light turned green.

The door clicked open.

I stood there, hand on the doorknob, heart in my throat.

And I pushed.