The company line connected before Mark could reach for my phone.
Dana stood beside me with her coffee abandoned on the metal bench.
Mark was directly across from us, one hand half-raised toward the sealed box as if he still believed he could put the last five minutes back where they belonged.
A woman answered with the company name and asked where to direct my call.
I looked at Mark.
His jaw tightened.
“I need whoever handles company property and security,” I said.
Mark closed his eyes for half a second.
“Claire, hang up.”
The woman on the line heard him.
“Ma’am, is there an immediate safety issue?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
“My husband works for your company.
Before our flight this morning, I watched him put a sealed box in my suitcase while he thought I was asleep.
We’re at the airport now.”
Dana’s face lost what little color it had left.
Mark stepped closer.
“You’re making this sound ridiculous.”
I moved the phone away from him.
“You hid it in my luggage.”
“That doesn’t make it dangerous.”
“I didn’t say dangerous.”
He stopped talking.
That silence told the woman on the phone something too.
She asked for Mark’s full name and department.
I gave them to her.
Dana supplied his job title when I hesitated.
Mark turned on her.
“Seriously?”
Dana folded her arms.
“You put something in your wife’s suitcase without telling her.
Yes.
Seriously.”
The call was transferred.
While we waited, I looked down at the box.
The brown tape was ordinary hardware-store tape.
Mark had wrapped it carefully, crossing the seams twice.
There was no shipping label and no handwriting.
Nothing to explain why it belonged in my suitcase instead of his.
“Open it,” Dana said again.
Mark shook his head.
“Don’t.”
I watched him for a moment.
All morning he had controlled the timing.
He had chosen when to wake me, when to leave, where the luggage sat in the SUV, how early we reached the airport.
He had reached for my suitcase at check-in because he had expected to control that too.
So I peeled the tape.
Not quickly.
That seemed to bother him more.
“Claire.”
I kept going.
The cardboard lid lifted.
Inside was fitted black foam holding two compact storage devices and a small security token.
Each piece carried the same company branding I had seen on Mark’s conference materials.
Dana leaned closer.
Her expression changed immediately.
