The Palm Reader

Elena sat at the tiki bar, nursing her gin and tonic, watching the condensation weep down the glass like something alive. The water left rings on the bamboo coaster, concentric circles of evidence that she'd been there too long.

Three weeks ago, she'd hired the private detective. Two days ago, he'd handed her a folder containing photographs of Richard—her Richard—with another woman. Their hands intertwined. His palm pressed against someone else's back.

Now she waited.

The bar was nearly empty. Palm fronds rustled overhead in the evening breeze, their shadows stretching across the table like fingers. Beyond them, the Pacific stretched dark and infinite, waves whispering against the sand.

"You look like someone who's been handed a life sentence without the trial."

Elena looked up. The man who'd spoken sat two stools down, maybe fifty, silver-haired, with eyes that had seen too much. He held his drink—whiskey, neat—like a weapon.

"Just thinking," she said.

"About your husband?"

Elena's blood turned to ice water in her veins. "Excuse me?"

"The ring tan line on your finger's recent. You keep checking your phone, but you're not really expecting anything, are you? And you ordered that drink two hours ago." He swirled his whiskey. "I used to be a spy, Ms. Elena. Cold War, mostly. Corporate espionage after. Reading people was the job."

"Was?"

"Now I consult." He slid a business card across the bamboo. "And sometimes, I help people who need answers but don't want the mess."

Elena picked up the card. "Richard said he traveled for business. That's what the photographs showed—him with someone in different cities. Always different hotels."

"And you assumed it was an affair."

"Wasn't it?"

The old spy's expression softened. "What did your detective find when he dug deeper?"

Elena pulled the folder from her bag. She'd looked again this morning—really looked. The woman in the photos was always the same age as Richard had been twenty years ago. Always wore the same locket Elena had given him last Christmas, back when he'd cried.

"The woman in these photographs," she whispered. "Her hands. There's a scar on her left palm."

"Like Richard's, from the factory accident?"

She nodded. "He told me about it. Once."

The old spy finished his drink. "Some men don't have affairs. Some men just visit the past, over and over, because they can't forgive themselves for letting go."

He stood up, leaving money on the bar. "Your husband's not cheating, Elena. He's haunted. Whether that's better or worse—that's for you to decide."

Elena watched him walk away through the palm trees toward the water. She called Richard. It rang three times before he answered.

"El? Is everything okay?"

"I love you," she said. "But we need to talk about where you go when you leave."

Silence stretched between them like the darkness beyond the shoreline.

"Okay," Richard said, and his voice cracked like something finally breaking. "Okay."

Elena ordered another gin and tonic. The water in the glass was clear, at least for now. Some secrets, she supposed, you had to learn to swim through.