What the Mirror Revealed

Elena adjusted the brim of her fedora, the shadows falling across her face like a second skin. At thirty-seven, she'd learned that the right hat could make you invisible — or someone else entirely. Her hair, once a rich mahogany that men had run their fingers through, was now pulled back tight, another layer of armor between her and the world.

Corporate espionage paid the bills, but it had stopped being thrilling years ago. Tonight's target: Marcus Webb, CFO of the company that had fired her husband six months ago. The husband who had stopped touching her somewhere around year seven. The husband who now sat in their apartment staring at the ceiling fan while she crept through other people's lives.

She'd followed Webb to bistro — of all places. The man had the subtlety of a train wreck. Elena sat three tables away, nursing a glass of wine she wasn't drinking, watching him through the reflection of a darkened window.

Then the front door opened.

Her husband walked in.

Not with a mistress. Not with a woman from his office. He was meeting Marcus Webb.

Elena watched as they shook hands, as Webb slid a thick envelope across the table. Her husband's hands — the hands that hadn't held her in so long she'd forgotten their weight — hesitated before accepting it. His hair was graying at the temples. She'd never noticed until this moment, never seen him as anything other than the disappointment he'd become.

The waiter brought Webb's dinner. Spinach salad, bright and obscene under the restaurant's lights. Such a mundane detail for such a treasonous moment.

Her husband said something. Webb laughed.

And Elena realized she wasn't the only spy in the marriage.

He hadn't been defeated by his firing at all. He'd been playing a longer game. Selling company secrets, maybe. Or buying them. She didn't know which was worse — that he'd betrayed his principles, or that he'd never trusted her enough to let her in.

She touched the brim of her hat, then stood up and walked out without looking back.

Some truths, she decided, were better observed through glass.