Traffic (Complete two-hundred pages) (Moving to Kindle Vella in 30 Days! )

15

TRUTH

"I NEED HONESTY, KATE."

Otherwise Jack might not make it out. "Whatever Golem said to you I need to know now."

But Kate would hear none of it. She almost laughed if it wasn't for her tears. "Honesty! You know nothing about honesty."

Jack stood up. Fire in his eyes. But at a standstill. Jack could only wonder what it was his wife knew.

Kate wiped her eyes and stood tall. "Tell me the truth."

Jack would not budge. "About what? I already told you my profession."

"First of all, no you did not."

He didn't? He was sure he did, but in case she had bad memory he would entertain her with a second discourse.

"Who are you?" she said.

He took a moment. Unbelievable, he thought. "Katelyn. . ."

She looked at him with intensity. And here was the honesty. The brutal total truth. In the silence, they could hear the music change downstairs. And Jack answered.

"I'm a spy."

Instead of a sudden realization about everything that has been happening, Katelyn looked at him with greater confusion. "A spy for what?"

"A spy for what?" Jack thought. For who else? The music grew louder downstairs so he spoke up.

"Our country. America."

Katelyn looked at him like a hypocrisy detector. "But that makes no sense. You hate America." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jack said, "I don't hate America. I hate the people."

Changing the ridiculous subject entirely, Katelyn showed her teeth. "Spy or not I know exactly what you've been doing abroad. And I know who you've been sleeping with."

Jack doubted it. "Oh yeah?"

"Yes . . ." tears hit the whites of her eyes. Swimming. Misting. "Penelope."

Jack shook his head. "You don't know anything. No proof. On the contrary, I know about you and Pat. You hypocrite." But Katelyn laughed. Such a ridiculous claim.

"Me and Pat? Get real."

"Get real? I know."

"You have no proof and it's false anyway. On the contrary I HAVE PROOF."

"BULLSHIT," said Jack. His eyes aflame. The anger steaming out of his ears.

But his worst nightmare came true when she pulled a key from her bra. She turned to unlock the drawer. And dammit, it opened. Before he could look over her shoulder she grabbed a pile of papers-- no, PHOTOGRAPHS-- and revealed them while tears trailed like cheetah tracks down her face.

"You fucked up," she said.