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own password, making sure I’m the only one who can access it.
    When I’m done, I close it and head up the stairs and back into our bedroom, where Rory still sleeps. After returning his phone to the charger, I take the thumb drive and the Post-it with his password into the master bathroom. I pull the long plastic tube of my travel toothbrush from my packed toiletry bag and twist it open, tossing the cheap toothbrush into the trash and wrapping the Post-it around the thumb drive. Then I drop them both into the tube and twist it closed again, burying it underneath my face lotion and cosmetics. With the bag zipped, I look at myself in the mirror, surrounded by the luxury Rory’s money has given me. The marble counters, the deep soaking tub and shower the size of a compact car. So different from the tiny bathroom I grew up using. Violet and I used to argue about who got to use it first in the mornings, until my mother disabled the lock. “We don’t have time for privacy,” she’d say. I used to dream about the day when I could lock the bathroom door and spend as much time in there as I wanted. I’d give anything to go back to how it used to be, the three of us in and out, squeezing past each other in the tight space, brushing teeth, putting on makeup, drying our hair.
    I won’t miss any of this.
    I flip off the light and make my way back into the bedroom, where I slip into bed next to my husband for the very last time.
    Twenty-two hours.

Claire
    Tuesday, February 22
    The Day of the Crash
    I must have slept, because the next thing I know, my alarm is yanking me awake. I blink the sleep from my eyes, taking in the room around me. The sun is up, and Rory’s side of the bed is empty. The clock reads seven thirty.
    I sit up, letting my nerves settle and excitement take over, before moving into the bathroom where I turn on the shower, letting steam obscure my face in the mirror. On the counter, I check again for the thumb drive, reassured that it seems to be undisturbed.
    Then I step into the shower, letting the hot water pound on my back, exhilaration flooding through me. After more than a year of careful planning, constant terror that the smallest error might lead to the discovery of what I’m about to do, the moment is finally here. I’m packed. I have everything I need. Rory is gone—to the office, to a meeting, it hardly matters. All I have to do is get dressed and walk out the door one last time.
    I finish quickly and wrap myself in my favorite robe, my mind already hours ahead. A quiet flight to Detroit, a school tour, and a banquet to keep me busy until everyone is asleep. A series of boxes I can check off, one at a time, until I’m free.
    But I pull up short when I enter my bedroom to find Constance, the upstairs maid, lifting my suitcase onto the bed and unzipping it. She begins to remove the heavy winter clothes that are packed on top of my undergarments.
    I grip my robe tight around my neck. “What are you doing?” My eyes are glued on the suitcase, tracking her hands as she pulls things out, bracing myself for what she’ll find at the bottom—a nylon backpack slipped under the lining. Blue jeans that don’t belong anywhere near the Detroit event. Several long-sleeved shirts and a down jacket no one has ever seen before.
    But she only carries the cold-weather items back to the closet, returning with lighter things—dresses and slacks in linen, setting my bright pink cashmere sweater on the bed, a flash of color that seems out of place and much too thin for this cold February morning. She smiles at me over her shoulder as she repacks everything and says, “Mr. Corcoran would like to speak with you.”
    He must have been lurking in the hall, because at the mention of his name, Bruce steps into the doorway and halts, clearly uncomfortable to find me just out of the shower. “Change of plans,” he says. “Mr. Cook is going to do