Chapter 4 - THE ACCOUNT THAT DIDN’T EXIST
Thomas read the wire instructions three times.
Then he handed the statement back to me.
“Mark told you this was a company account?”
Daniel nodded.
“He said you’d reopened it for an internal restructuring.”
“I did not.”
“He showed me paperwork.”
“Did you verify it?”
Daniel’s silence was his answer.
Thomas’s face tightened.
“You sent sixty-one thousand dollars into an account because your friend showed you paperwork?”
“I trusted him.”
I couldn’t stop myself.
“So did I.”
Daniel looked at me.
I held his gaze.
“That’s how this works, apparently.”
Thomas took out his phone.
He did not make some dramatic call to the police.
He opened the company banking app.
Then he showed Daniel a list of accounts.
“Whitmore Family Holdings ended operations after your grandfather died.”
Daniel stared.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense if Mark wanted you to think you were repaying the company.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
“You said you moved money between project accounts.”
“With Mark.”
“Who controlled the transfers?”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Mostly him.”
Thomas gave a slow nod.
That answer worried him.
Daniel saw it.
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you may be an idiot instead of the mastermind.”
Daniel stared at his father.
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, I said, “That doesn’t make him innocent.”
Thomas looked at me.
“No.”
Daniel turned toward me.
“Claire, if Mark was moving money—”
“You still forged my name.”
“I know.”
“You still took our ten thousand.”
“I know.”
“You still left.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“You still went to Europe with Savannah.”
This time he didn’t answer.
I nodded.
“Good. Then we’re clear.”
Thomas photographed the statement.
“We need the original closing records for that old account.”
Daniel suddenly stepped closer.
“Wait.”
Thomas looked up.
“If Mark set me up, you need to know something.”
“What?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Savannah knew about Juniper Ridge.”
My stomach twisted.
“How?”
“She did consulting work for Mark.”
Thomas frowned.
“What kind?”
“Investor presentations. Branding. Some introductions.”
“And you started sleeping with her.”
Daniel looked at the floor.
“Yes.”
I was surprised by how little that answer hurt now.
Not because it didn’t matter.
Because there were too many other injuries competing for space.
“How long?” I asked.
He swallowed.
“Five months.”
Five months.
My hand instinctively moved to my stomach, even though the babies had been born weeks ago.
Five months meant he had started the affair while I was still pregnant.
I remembered him touching my belly.
Painting the nursery.
Telling me he was working late.
“Five months,” I repeated.
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“Claire.”
“Don’t say my name like it hurts you.”
He stopped.
Thomas looked away.
I wanted Daniel to feel shame.
What I hadn’t expected was how humiliating it felt to have someone else witness mine.
Even Thomas.
Especially Thomas.
I walked toward the stairs.
“I’m done tonight.”
Daniel stepped after me.
“Claire, please.”
I turned.
“You wanted space.”
He stopped.
“You have an empty house.”
Then I remembered something.
A coat.
Daniel’s charcoal wool coat had been hanging in the hall closet when the movers came.
I had almost sent it to storage.
Instead, something heavy in the inside pocket had made me check it.
At the time, Noah had started crying, and I had tossed the coat into a box without looking closely.
The box was still upstairs because I had forgotten to label it.
I went up.
Daniel followed.
“So you’re just leaving?”
“I already left.”
“I mean this.”
“What is this?”
“Our marriage.”
I stopped halfway up the stairs.
“My son was on a ventilator while you drank champagne on a yacht.”
“I didn’t know!”
“Because you made sure you wouldn’t.”
He looked stunned.
“You turned your phone off.”
“It kept ringing.”
“Yes.”
“With calls from your wife whose newborn son couldn’t breathe.”
His face folded.
Not completely.
Just enough.
“I was angry.”
“At a baby?”
“At everything.”
“That’s not better.”
I went upstairs.
The bedrooms were empty now.
Every sound echoed.
In the nursery, pale rectangles marked where the cribs had stood.
Daniel stopped in the doorway.
For the first time, he looked around as though the missing furniture meant something more than inconvenience.
He touched the wall where we had once hung wooden letters spelling LILY and NOAH.
I didn’t let myself soften.
I opened the remaining box.
His coat lay on top.
I reached into the inside pocket.
My fingers closed around a small velvet pouch.
Daniel’s face changed.
“What is that?”
“I was about to ask you.”
I opened it.
Inside was a necklace.
Not Savannah’s.
Mine.
A thin gold chain with a tiny oval locket.
My mother’s locket.
The one I had been searching for since the seventh month of my pregnancy.
I stared at Daniel.
“You told me the cleaners must have lost this.”
His face went white.
“I can explain.”
I laughed once.
“Of course you can.”
The locket had been my mother’s.
She wore it in almost every photograph from my childhood.
After she died, it was the one piece of jewelry I could not bear to put away.
I had planned to wear it in the hospital when the twins were born.
Then it disappeared.
Daniel had watched me cry over it.
He had helped me search drawers.
He had even called the cleaning company.
“What were you doing with it?”
Daniel reached toward me.
I pulled back.
“I was going to have it repaired.”
“There was nothing wrong with it.”
“The clasp.”
“The clasp was fine.”
He stopped.
Thomas appeared behind him.
“What happened?”
I held up the locket.
Daniel looked trapped.
Then I noticed something inside the velvet pouch.
A folded receipt.
I pulled it out.
A jeweler in downtown Portland.
APPRAISAL.
Estimated value: $6,700.
Below that was another line.
CUSTOM REPLICA REQUEST.
I stared at it.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
My fingers shook as I opened the locket.
Inside were supposed to be two tiny photographs.
My parents on their wedding day.
They were gone.
In their place was a small photograph of Daniel and Savannah.
Standing together in front of a hotel.
Thomas inhaled sharply.
I could barely speak.
“You put her picture in my mother’s necklace?”
“No.”
Daniel’s answer was immediate.
“I didn’t.”
“It’s in your coat.”
“I know.”
“Then whose idea was it?”
His eyes opened.
“That locket wasn’t supposed to be there.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Savannah had it.”
The room went silent.
I thought there was nowhere lower Daniel could take me.
Then he said, “She took it after she found out I was married.”
I looked at him.
“She knew you were married.”
“Not at first.”
My throat tightened.
He continued quickly.
“I told her we were separated.”
Thomas muttered, “Jesus.”
Daniel looked at me.
“She found the locket in my hotel room months ago.”
“Why was my mother’s necklace in your hotel room?”
He hesitated.
Too long.
“Daniel.”
His voice dropped.
“Because I was going to sell it.”
The words landed softly.
Almost gently.
That made them worse.
I looked down at the little gold locket that had survived my mother’s death, my father’s move, three apartments, one wedding, and my entire pregnancy.
Daniel had taken it to pay his debts.
Then something else fell from the pouch.
A small piece of paper.
Not a receipt.
A luggage claim ticket.
Barcelona.
Dated three days before Daniel left Portland.
I stared at it.
Then at him.
“How did Savannah’s luggage ticket get into your coat three days before you supposedly left for Europe?”
Daniel didn’t move.
Thomas stepped closer.
“You said she met you there.”
Daniel looked at his father.
Then at me.
May you like
And finally, quietly, he admitted the truth.
“She was in Portland before I left.”
