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“What do you like to do?” I asked.

Luke thought about it. “Video games. And hunting with Dad.”

My attention snapped back to him. “You go hunting with your dad?”

He nodded. “Sometimes.”

Of course Richard took him hunting.

For some reason, hearing that made me smile. I could picture the two of them together, Richard teaching him what to do while Luke followed him around asking a million questions. At least I knew Richard was there. He was raising our son. Spending time with him. Teaching him things.

So where the hell was he?

I looked toward the door again.

Seth sat quietly beside Samantha, watching me. I ignored him and asked Luke a few more questions, but I wasn’t really listening to the answers anymore. Every sound from the other side of the room pulled my attention away. Every time the door opened, I expected to see Richard walking through it.

“So… Richie couldn’t make it?” I asked Samantha again.

“No,” she replied.

I turned fully to Samantha. “How is he?”

“He’s… doing okay,” she said carefully.

I leaned forward a little. “Is he still working too much?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Does he still drink that expensive scotch? The one that smells like smoke and oak?”

“Yeah,” Samantha sighed. “He does.”

I sat back, strangely pleased with myself.

She might have been his wife. She lived with him. Slept beside him every night. Raised his children and carried his last name. But I knew Richard. I knew the stupid little things about him that most people probably never noticed. What he drank and how he drank it. What he read when he couldn’t sleep. The way his jaw tightened when something irritated him. How much he hated being interrupted while he worked. The exact look he got when he was pretending not to be angry. Samantha probably didn’t even think about those things anymore.

I remembered all of them.

“Does he still read The Art of War when he can’t sleep? He used to do that all the time. And the way he’d quote it sometimes—” I laughed a little. “He always works too much. I know he’ll come next time. Work probably just held him up today.”

Samantha didn’t answer.

“He knows I’m here, right?”

“Yes.”

“And he knows Luke came?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’ll come next time.”

She looked at me for a moment. “Maggie...”

“He will.” I smiled before she could finish. “Richard does things when he’s ready. You know that.”

Of course she knew.