Naomi learned about that particular Verlaine trip, according to what she eventually explained to me, through Patricia’s continued monitoring, discovering the booking under my name alongside a second first-class ticket purchased separately under Selene’s name.
I remember her explaining this detail with a kind of clinical precision that still, even weeks later, unsettled me, describing exactly how Patricia had flagged the reservation the moment it appeared, cross-referencing it against my supposed business travel schedule and finding the discrepancy immediately obvious. “I could have confronted you the moment I saw that booking,” she told me. “I chose not to. I wanted to see it through to the end, on my own terms, in my own time.”
She requested that specific flight assignment deliberately, using her seniority within the airline to secure exactly that route, understanding precisely what she’d be walking into once she confirmed our names on the passenger manifest.
“I wanted witnesses,” she told me later, during one of our few genuinely honest conversations following everything that unraveled.
