I played it again.
Then I found another one, and another.
Rhett had left the microphone running during calls he thought were private, maybe out of habit, maybe out of laziness.
There were weeks of them.
He talked about me like I was a problem to be solved.
He talked about the show like it was already his.
And he talked about Aubrey like she was a business partner he was sleeping with.
I felt sick, but I kept going.
Then I found something that made my hands go cold.
A scanned receipt, filed in a folder labeled “Studio Expenses,” for a rental apartment in Aubrey’s town.
The lease was in Rhett’s name.
Six months.
Paid in advance.
I printed it out and put it in a folder with the audio logs.
Simone arrived at seven sharp and found me still at the desk.
“You look like you haven’t slept,” she said.
“I haven’t,” I said.
“Sit down.
I need you to hear this.”
I played her the first clip.
When it ended, Simone’s face was pale.
“How long has this been going on?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
“But I’m going to find out.”
We spent the rest of the morning cataloging everything.
Every file, every date, every call.
By noon, I had a timeline that went back eight months.
That was when my phone buzzed with a text from my daughter, Maya.
“Mom, did you mean to send me this?”
I opened the attachment.
It was a screenshot of a message from Aubrey’s number, timestamped the night before.
The message read: “Your wife still thinks I’m just a guest, right?”
My stomach dropped.
I called Maya immediately.
“Honey, where did you get this?”
I asked.
“It just came to my phone,” she said.
“I don’t even know this number.
Mom, what’s going on?”
I took a breath.
“I’ll explain when I get home,” I said.
“Don’t reply to it.
Don’t call your father.
Just wait for me.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“Is Dad in trouble?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I think he is.”
I hung up and looked at Simone.
“That message was meant for Rhett,” I said.
“She sent it to Maya by mistake.”
Simone shook her head.
“Or she sent it to the wrong number on purpose,” she said.
“Some people like to leave a trail.”
I didn’t know which was worse.
But I knew one thing for certain.
Rhett wasn’t just cheating on me.
He was building something behind my back, and he was using my own show to do it.
I picked up the phone and called my attorney.
Then I went home to talk to my daughter.
Chapter 4 – The Message
Maya was sitting on the front steps when I pulled into the driveway.
She had her phone in her hand and her backpack still on her shoulders, like she hadn’t been able to go inside.
I got out of the car and sat down next to her.
“Show me the message again,” I said.
She handed me the phone.
It was exactly as she’d shown me: a screenshot of a text from Aubrey’s number, sent to Maya’s phone at 11:47 the night before.
“Your wife still thinks I’m just a guest, right?”
I read it three times.
“Do you know who this is?”
Maya asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“She was a guest on the podcast yesterday.”
Maya frowned.
“Why would a guest text me?”
I put my arm around her.
“Because she meant to text your father,” I said.
“And she got the numbers mixed up.”
Maya pulled away.
“What?”
I told her the truth, as much of it as I could stand to say out loud.
I told her what I had walked into at the studio, and what I had found in the archive.
She listened without interrupting, which was worse than if she had screamed.
When I finished, she stood up and started pacing the driveway.
“I want to call him,” she said.
“I want to ask him how he could do this to us.”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t know everything yet,” I said.
“And because anything you say to him right now, he can use later.
I need you to trust me on this.”
She stopped pacing.
“You’re not going to just let him get away with it, are you?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“But I’m going to do this the right way.”
That evening, Rhett came home.
He walked into the kitchen like nothing had happened, and he poured himself a glass of water.
“Long day,” he said.
“Sit down,” I said.
He looked at me then, and I saw something shift in his face.
He knew.
“I’m not going to play games with you,” I said.
