The second name on that hotel reservation was not a mistake and it was not a supplier. It was Colleen.

Wade had hired her two years ago straight out of the community college down on 4th Street. She was twenty-four, all sharp angles and polite smiles, and Wade said she had a head for payroll that would save us a fortune in accountant fees. I remember the day he brought her by the office in her neat little beige cardigan.

I made coffee and offered her a blueberry muffin from the bakery across the block. She ate half of it and thanked me twice.

“She’s a real go-getter, Brenda,” Wade had told me that evening while he unlaced his heavy work boots by the back door. “Takes a load right off my shoulders.”

I figured he meant the paperwork. Prentiss Roofing had grown from a couple of ladders in the back of an old Ford pickup into a crew of twelve guys running three trucks across three counties. I liked the work. I liked knowing every nail, every square of shingles, every roll of underlayment that went out on a job. I liked the steady rhythm of our lives.

Twenty-six years of meatloaf on Tuesdays and church on Sundays and him kissing the top of my head when he came home smelling like tar and pine.

Then came the phone call from the Grove Hotel about a silk scarf.

I sat at the kitchen table for a long time after I hung up the landline.

The house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator. My hands weren’t shaking, which felt weird. Usually when I get mad, my fingers go all clumsy and cold. But this felt different. This felt like a cold room I had accidentally walked into.

I opened the bottom drawer of the maple desk where we kept the company records. The blue canvas binder was right where it always was.

Wade always said the books were my territory. “You handle the numbers, Brenda,” he’d tell the guys at the supply yard like it was a great joke. “She’s the real boss.”

I turned the heavy cream pages back through January. There was the charge for the Grove Hotel in Boise. Two nights. $340. Then another charge for a steakhouse downtown. $214. And a spa fee right before checkout. $185 for a deep tissue massage.

Wade hates massages. He says they are a waste of good money and nobody needs a stranger rubbing on them.

I kept turning pages. March was Coeur d’Alene. Two nights at the resort on the lake. Dinner for two at the steakhouse on the water. May was Spokane. Another hotel, another upscale dinner, another spa charge. Every quarter for the last two years, right around the time Wade claimed he had regional supplier conferences where spouses weren’t invited.

I laid my pen down on the table. The ink was black. I had used a medium point Bic.

That evening when Wade came home, he kissed the top of my head just like he had every night since we were kids. He smelled like gasoline and stale coffee from the truck.

“How was the conference?” I asked.

He hung his jacket on the peg by the door. “Real snooze, Bren. Same old guys talking about shingle warranties and price hikes. I’m beat.”

“Did you get dinner?”

“Grabbed a burger with the guys,” he said without looking at me.

He walked right past the kitchen island and headed straight for the TV. “What’s for supper?”

“Meatloaf,” I said.

He had two helpings and talked about how the new truck transmission was making a funny noise. I nodded at all the right places. I handed him his iced tea. I watched him wipe his mouth with the paper napkin and throw it right on top of his plate when he was finished.

The next morning, after he left for the yard, I drove straight to the office.

Colleen wasn’t there yet. The front room smelled like the lemon polish she used on the laminate desks. I walked into Wade’s private office and picked up the landline on his desk. I dialed the Grove Hotel number I had written down on my yellow legal pad the night before.

When the desk clerk answered, I used my best business voice. The one I used when I was chewing out a lumber distributor for shorting us on ridge vents.

“This is Mrs. Prentiss,” I said. “I’m calling about the reservation under my husband’s name from earlier this week. We seem to have a discrepancy with the billing on our corporate account.”

The clerk was polite, typing away on her keyboard. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Prentiss. Let me pull that file back up. We’re still holding the silk scarf and the reading glasses at the front desk.”

“Just verify the registered guests for me, please,” I said. My voice didn’t even waver. “For my records.”

“Certainly,” she said. “We have Wade Prentiss and Colleen Miller checking into room 412 on Tuesday afternoon and checking out Thursday morning.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s all I needed.”

I set the phone down gently in its cradle.

I didn’t yell at the wall. I didn’t knock over the stapler. I just sat there in Wade’s leather desk chair and looked out the window at our three company trucks parked in the gravel lot. They had our name painted on the doors in bold blue letters. Prentiss Roofing. Est. 2001.

I spent the next three hours pulling every corporate credit card statement, every receipt envelope, and every travel reimbursement form from the last twenty-four months. I laid them out across the large oak conference table in neat little piles. Every hotel stay mapped out against Colleen’s timesheet hours. When she claimed she was home sick with a migraine, the company card had paid for room service in Spokane. When Wade said he was driving up north alone to inspect a damaged commercial roof, Colleen’s name was right there on the airline manifest and the hotel folio, both charged to our business account.

It wasn’t just an affair. It was embezzlement. Using company funds to finance their little trips out of town while I sat at home doing their payroll and keeping our taxes clean.

I put all the documentation into a heavy manila folder. I didn’t call a lawyer right away. I called Marcus.

Marcus had been Wade’s best friend since high school and owned twenty percent of Prentiss Roofing. He’s the one who handles the crews out in the field while Wade handles the bids. Marcus is quiet, and he loves his wife, and he has zero patience for dishonesty.

When Marcus walked into the office twenty minutes later, he took one look at my face and stopped dead by the door.

“Brenda?” he said. “What’s going on?”

I didn’t say a word. I just slid the manila folder across the oak table toward him.

He sat down slow, his heavy work hands resting on the corner of the wood. He opened the folder. He looked at the first hotel receipt with Wade and Colleen’s names printed clear as day. Then he looked at the credit card ledger showing the business account footing the bill for dinners, rooms, and spa treatments.

Marcus didn’t whistle. He didn’t swear. He just closed the folder and rubbed the back of his neck with one big hand.

“How long?” he asked quietly.

“Two years,” I said. “Maybe longer. That’s just how far back I checked today.”

Marcus stood up, his chair scraping loud against the linoleum. He walked over to the window and looked out at the trucks in the gravel lot for a long time. When he turned back around, his jaw was set so tight I could see the muscle jumping in his cheek.

“He’s done,” Marcus said.

“I know,” I told him.

“You want me to handle him, or do you want to be here?”

“I’ll be here,” I said, standing up and smoothing down the front of my blouse. “I have to finish the payroll anyway.”