The Green Between Your Teeth

Elena adjusted the brim of her hat, a black felt thing she'd bought on impulse, as she stared across the candlelit table. Marcus was laughing at something their host said, his head tilted back, throat exposed. He looked handsome, relaxed, the man she'd spent seven years building a life with.

Her iPhone buzzed against her thigh. A notification from the Find My Device app. Not unusual—Marcus had added her to his family plan when they'd moved in together, a gesture of domestic practicality.

Except she'd turned her phone off an hour ago.

Elena watched Marcus excuse himself to the kitchen, the easy rhythm of his movements betraying nothing. She remembered the spinach stuck between his teeth earlier, a fleck of green he'd wiped away with his napkin while explaining the nuances of corporate merger law. How thorough he'd been, how meticulous.

She pulled out her phone. Seventeen location requests in the past three hours. Since before she'd arrived at this dinner party he hadn't wanted to attend.

The realization unfolded slowly, like blood blooming in water. He hadn't wanted to come because he hadn't known where she was going. She'd mentioned it Tuesday, but he'd been distracted by work. Work he'd been doing late recently, encrypted files on encrypted servers, nondisclosure agreements he couldn't discuss.

Marcus was a corporate attorney. That's what he'd said since they met. But Elena had never seen his office. Never met his partners. His clients were always confidential, his cases sensitive.

"Everything okay?" Marcus had returned, sliding into the chair beside hers, his hand resting familiarly on her knee.

"Fine," she said. "Just work."

"You know," he said, studying her face with that careful attention she'd always found romantic, "you have something right here." He gestured to his own teeth.

Spinach. She'd been eating spinach.

Elena laughed, and it sounded genuine even to her. "Thanks."

She excused herself to the restroom, her phone burning in her pocket. There, she searched his name—Marcus Webb—cross-referenced with corporate espionage investigations.

Three results. A former FBI counterintelligence analyst turned private consultant. Specialized in monitoring employees suspected of leaking trade secrets.

The pieces clicked into place: their first "chance" encounter at a coffee shop near her tech firm. His questions about her projects, his interest in her coworkers, his discomfort when she talked about the increasingly restrictive security protocols at work.

He'd been a spy in their marriage.

Elena stared at her reflection, at the invisible spinach between her teeth, at the hat she now adjusted with trembling fingers. She could confront him. Could demand explanations, could scream across the dinner table.

Instead, she messaged her boss: "I think I know who's leaking our prototypes."

Then she ordered a ride share. Not to their apartment, but to her sister's place in Oakland.

Marcus found her gone twenty minutes later. Her iPhone lit up with four missed calls before she blocked his number. The hat stayed on the restaurant chair.

Some things, she decided, were better left behind.