Manhattan

Noriko's alarm went off at six thirty as usual. She had put on her slippers and was halfway to the bathroom when she realized her husband's side of the bed had not been slept in.

While she was too accustomed to Ichiro's being out with clients and co-workers late at night to wake up when he finally did come home, it was unusual for him not to be lying beside her when she got up in the morning.

She thought about it as she brushed her teeth. She knew he was not going on a trip. He would have told her so she could have packed. Perhaps he had come in late and needed to leave unusually early for a meeting, so he had slept in one of the guest rooms.

She washed her face and ran a comb through her hair. If he had done that, he would still have to put on clean clothes, which meant she would find his dirty clothes lying around somewhere.

Noriko first checked the dressing alcove off the bedroom. There was no sign of clothes having been changed. No closet door was ajar, no dresser drawer incompletely closed, nothing left in a heap on the floor.

She padded down the hall and glanced in the second bedroom, then went upstairs to the third floor and looked in the guest rooms. She even checked the upstairs bathroom, just to be sure. Nothing was disturbed.