The Riddle at Midnight
The padel court echoed with the rhythmic thwack of racquets against ball, each stroke more vicious than the last. Elena's arm ached, but she welcomed the pain — anything to dull the sharper ache in her chest. Across the net, David moved with predatory grace, his face unreadable in the floodlights. Two weeks ago, they'd been golden. Now every point felt like an accusation.
A cat appeared at the fence, silver as moonlight, watching them with dispassionate yellow eyes. It had been showing up every night since she'd found the texts. She'd started leaving tuna, as if offering sacrifices to some ancient god of marital fidelity.
"Game," David said, and the ball rolled to a stop at the cat's paws.
They walked in silence to the infinity pool, its surface still as polished obsidian. The sphinx statue at the far end regarded them with its eternal stone smile — some pretentious installation the resort's owner had imported from Egypt. At 2 AM, it looked less like art and more like a warning.
"She meant nothing," David said finally.
Elena laughed, dark humor bubbling up like bile. "That's what the sphinx said to Oedipus, and we all know how that ended."
She stripped off her sweat-soaked clothes and slid into the pool. The water shocked her skin, electric and cold. David watched from the edge, moonlight carving his features into something unfamiliar. A stranger she'd somehow been married to for seven years.
"Are you coming in?" she asked.
"I don't think so."
"Then solve the riddle, David." Elena treaded water, suddenly weightless. "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening — and doesn't tell his wife about the woman in Barcelona?"
The cat licked its paw. The sphinx smiled on. And for the first time in weeks, Elena felt something like clarity crystallizing in her chest, sharp and final as cut glass.
"I think," she said softly, "the answer is: a man who's about to sleep alone."
She swam toward the deep end, and somewhere behind her, David's shadow finally moved away from the pool's edge.