The idea hit with a bolt, and I cut the engine.
I climbed out and scurried to the front door. Robert was unlikely to be home in the middle of the afternoon, which meant I had time to look for evidence of his lies. If he was home, I’d use the opportunity to give him a piece of my mind.
No one answered when I rang the bell, so I decided to let myself in. My key no longer fit into the lock.
I gasped. “Asshole!”
I marched around the side of the house.
The utility door near the back patio swung easily inward. “Sucker.”
I’d told Robert a thousand times that the lock wasn’t properly aligned, and nine times out of ten it didn’t latch. I never thought his refusal to listen would benefit me one day.
Lazy men for the win,I thought, slipping inside and pulling the door closed tightly behind me, and thanking my lucky stars Robert was too cheap to pay for a security system.
My heart pounded as I peeked out the front windows, on the lookout for lookie-loos and nosy Nellies.
Then I turned to examine my former home.
Why was it so unnecessarily big? It’d been years since I’d had a psychology class, but I was sure Sigmund Freud would have a field day with that question.
I moved through our home, astonished at how little it felt like mine, despite the fact I’d only been gone a few months. I didn’t miss it. I was lucky to be free. Though Alicia would say that was all my doing. My perseverance. My courage. With a little more of that, maybe I’d finally shake Robert’s continued grasp on me.
His office door stood open at the end of the first-floor hallway, and I crept inside. I felt like a criminal, though the place was legally half mine, and I’d been alone inside the room a thousand times. Stacks of file folders on his desk contained details related to his clients. A pile of unopened bills filled a tray.
Why pay the utilities when letting the accounts go to collections would further support his ruse?
I pulled a pen from the cup on his desktop and used it to open, then riffle through, his drawers. My prints were probably everywhere in the house, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I shouldn’t be there, and I didn’t want to leave any evidence behind.
I pocketed the pen when I came up empty.
No smoking gun here.
But maybe he anticipated I’d come poking around. That was the only reason to change the locks, wasn’t it?
I moved into the hallway and gave the office one last look to be sure nothing, save the pen in my pocket, was out of place. Then I closed my eyes and waited for a bolt of brilliance to strike.
“Oh!” My eyes opened on a burst of excitement.
I climbed the steps at double speed and raced to the primary suite.
Robert had a hidey-hole in the floorboards where he kept his porn. Too smart to leave a digital footprint, he still subscribed to magazines like his father before him. He had them sent to a PO box. Then he brought them home, and he had no idea I knew all about it. I’d foundthe loose board years ago while cleaning and had been devastated by what was inside.
I stopped short when I crossed the threshold of my former bedroom. “Oh my god.” Robert had rearranged the furniture and hung a massive white screen on the wall where my bookshelves once stood. A projector hung from the ceiling above our bed. “You turned our bedroom into a theater?” And watched movies from bed? How lazy was he?
I guffawed my way across the room, only to perform a triple take as I passed my walk-in closet. A belligerent gasp ripped from my throat as I caught sight of the weight bench. “No fucking way.” I changed my trajectory and slapped my palm against the light switch, then glared as the complete home gym appeared before me. “Unbelievable.”
Robert had made our primary suite into a private man quarters. A bedroom with a theater, gym, bathroom, and porn.
I shut off the light and forced myself away. If I stewed instead of returning to my mission, I’d burn the whole place down.
Across the room, I knelt beside the window and peeled back the corner of our area rug. I tested the floor by knocking until I found the loose board and checked underneath.
I rolled my eyes at the young, airbrushed body on this month’s cover. I said a silent prayer for her health, and the well-being of every woman who bought into this idea of perfection. And I wished for karmic justice on the men who still objectified us.
I removed the magazines and placed them in careful stacks along the wall. For a moment, I feared I’d wasted my time. Then the small white corner of a document came into view. And just like that, hidden beneath Robert’s copies ofHustler, I hit the jackpot.
Elation soared as I sifted through the paperwork, growing infinitely happier by the second. “Holy shit!”
