A lover’s flawless facade cracks at 2:00 a.m. when three passports and a train ticket reveal a dangerous secret.
The Midnight Jacket
Jan Menos fell in love with Tommy Forte with the speed of a fifty-pound bag of cement dropped from the fiftieth floor. It was Tommy this, Tommy that, endlessly, until Mia Johnson finally cornered her over lukewarm diner coffee: “Slow down, Jan. Nobody is that perfect. He’s hiding something—find out before it’s too late.”
Now it was 2:00 a.m. Rain tapped against the bedroom window like nervous fingernails. Tommy’s bare chest rose and fell in steady, tranquil rhythm. Jan hadn’t slept a wink.
Slipping from beneath the covers, the hardwood icy beneath her bare soles, she glided toward the closet. Tommy’s charcoal wool coat hung heavy on the cedar peg. Her fingers slid into the outer pockets—empty theater stubs, mint foil. Then, deep inside the silk interior breast lining, her knuckles brushed cool metal and folded cardstock.
She eased out a thick manila envelope, unsealed, along with a brass safety deposit key stamped Vault 404.
Inside the envelope lay three separate passports. Same dark hair, same sharp jawline, same warm hazel eyes—but three different names, none of them Tommy Forte. Tucked beneath the passports was a cashier’s check for two hundred thousand dollars made out to her own name, and a one-way train ticket to Montreal departing at sunrise.
A floorboard groaned behind her.
Jan froze. The rhythmic breathing had stopped.
Reflected in the dark glass of the closet mirror, Tommy stood in the doorway. He wasn’t reaching for a weapon, nor did he look angry. His expression was cracked open with a desperate, sorrowful exhaustion.
“You weren’t supposed to find that until after I was gone, Jan,” he murmured, his voice barely a breath. “Now you have to decide.”
