Husband Fled with First Love, I Saved World with Medical Expertise Chapter 01
Four hours before the city shuttered under the official lockdown order, Adrian Cole sent me a text: [Working late tonight. Don’t wait up.]
Six hours later, the entire city was sealed off.
I called him. His phone was off.
When I opened the airline app, his name stared back at me on the passenger list for Flight SK418.
Destination: Port Kensington.
And seated right next to him on the same flight was Vivian Sterling.
12A and 12B.
Window and middle seat. Close enough to share an armrest.
In the kitchen, the short rib soup was still bubbling on the stove.
From the bedroom, Evelyn Cole poked her head out, her voice sharp, “Why isn’t he home? I’m starving.”
I turned off the heat.
He wasn’t coming back.
The soup boiled over and smothered the flame.
I stared at my phone screen. Flight SK418. Departed.
Next to the status bar, a tiny plane icon kept inching its way toward the Southern Hemisphere.
I flipped the phone facedown on the counter, walked into the bedroom, and opened Adrian’s side of the closet.
Empty.
His suits, overcoats, cashmere sweaters, all gone.
Even his favorite pair of brown loafers had disappeared.
Inside the drawer, his passport was gone too, leaving behind a clean square in the dust.
The house title was still there. So was our marriage certificate. But his social security card and ID papers had been removed.
This hadn’t been impulsive.
I crouched down and pulled a shoebox from the bottom shelf of the closet. Inside was an electronic itinerary from Southern Skies Airlines, printed eleven days earlier.
Three tickets.
Flight SK418. Port Kensington.
Claire Bennett. Adrian Cole. Vivian Sterling.
All three names were printed side by side.
But mine had a red stamp across it: Refunded.
Refund date: five days earlier.
He had bought three tickets eleven days ago.
Five days ago, he canceled mine.
He had considered taking me with him.
Then he decided not to.
“Claire!” Evelyn shouted from the living room. “Where’s my soup? My blood sugar’s low. Are you trying to starve me?”
I folded the itinerary and slipped it into my bag.
By the time I carried the soup out, the TV was broadcasting the lockdown order.
“Effective at 10:00 p.m. tonight, all public transportation across the city will be suspended. Residents are advised to shelter in place until further notice—”
She frowned and changed the channel. “I’m so sick of hearing this. Did Adrian say when he was coming back?”
“He left on a business trip.”
“A business trip? To where?”
“Overseas.”
I set the soup in front of her.
She muttered something about how ridiculous it was to be traveling at a time like this, then lowered her head and started eating.
She didn’t ask anything else.
I stepped out onto the balcony and saw barricade tape already crisscrossing at the entrance to the complex.
Someone tried to run out with a suitcase and got stopped at the gate.
The wind was strong, snapping the plastic tape hard enough to make it crack.
By then Adrian was probably thirty thousand feet in the air.
Vivian was sitting beside him.
And I was standing here beside his mother.
My phone buzzed.
Another message from Adrian: [Made it to the office. I’ll probably be here late, so get some sleep.]
Sent at 5:14 p.m.
At 5:14, he had already been at the gate.
I didn’t reply.
I took a screenshot and saved it to a brand-new album on my phone.
After a moment’s thought, I gave the folder a name.
Evidence.