Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WASN’T SUPPOSED TO CALL
Two weeks after I discovered Simon’s report, Madelyn called me.
I almost didn’t answer.
Her name appeared on my phone at 6:17 on a Tuesday morning.
MADELYN REESE.
Simon’s assistant.
The woman he had announced was pregnant as though her pregnancy were a courtroom verdict against my body.
I stared at the screen until the call stopped.
Thirty seconds later, she called again.
Then a text arrived.
PLEASE DON’T TELL SIMON I CONTACTED YOU.
I sat up in Gideon’s guest room.
Another message appeared.
I HAVE SOMETHING YOU NEED TO SEE.
I forwarded both messages to Lila.
She called immediately.
“Do not meet her alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Do not tell Gideon to scare her.”
I almost laughed.
“Gideon doesn’t scare people.”
A pause.
“Rachel, I’ve met Gideon.”
“All right. He doesn’t intentionally scare people.”
“That I’ll accept.”
By eight o’clock, Lila had arranged a meeting in a private conference room at her office.
Madelyn arrived ten minutes late.
The first thing I noticed was that she was visibly pregnant.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
She wore a loose cream sweater over black pants, and when she sat down, one hand moved unconsciously across the slight curve of her stomach.
For one ugly second, old pain returned.
Not jealousy.
Something more primitive.
The memory of Simon standing in our kitchen.
Madelyn is pregnant.
So I guess we finally know which one of us was the problem.
Madelyn saw my expression.
Her eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
Lila sat between us at the end of the table.
“Ms. Reese, you asked for this meeting. Start with why.”
Madelyn placed her phone on the table.
“Because Simon is lying to everybody.”
I said nothing.
“He lied to you. He lied to me. And now he’s asking me to lie for him.”
“About what?”
She looked at me.
“The baby.”
My stomach dropped.
“Is it his?”
“No.”
The room became absolutely silent.
I heard the air-conditioning vent.
A car horn four floors below.
Lila’s pen touching paper.
Madelyn swallowed.
“I was already pregnant when Simon and I started sleeping together.”
It took me several seconds to speak.
“Already?”
“About five weeks.”
“Did he know?”
“Not at first.”
“But he knows now?”
“Yes.”
“When did you tell him?”
“The week before he left you.”
I leaned back.
The cruelty of it was so precise that I almost admired the architecture.
Simon had known Madelyn’s pregnancy wasn’t his.
He had known his own medical history.
And he had still stood in our kitchen and used an unborn child to convince me that six years of infertility had been my fault.
“Who is the father?”
“A man named Tyler.”
Lila raised a hand.
“You don’t need to identify him unless it becomes legally relevant.”
Madelyn nodded gratefully.
“We dated briefly. It ended. When I found out I was pregnant, we were already talking again, trying to decide what to do. Simon and I had kissed twice before that. Nothing more.”
“And after you told Simon?” I asked.
“He became interested.”
The way she said it made my skin crawl.
“Interested in the baby?”
“In the timing.”
Lila stopped writing.
“Explain.”
Madelyn unlocked her phone.
“He asked how far along I was. Then he asked whether Tyler knew. Then he asked whether anyone at work knew.”
She slid the phone across the table.
A screenshot showed an exchange between her and Simon.
MADELYN: I am not telling Rachel this baby is yours.
SIMON: I never asked you to.
MADELYN: You keep saying “our situation” in front of people.
SIMON: Let people assume what they want.
MADELYN: The dates won’t work.
SIMON: The dates don’t matter unless someone checks them.
Then another.
SIMON: I need Rachel to stop fighting the divorce before it becomes expensive.
MADELYN: What does my pregnancy have to do with that?
SIMON: Everything if she thinks it proves what she’s always been afraid of.
I stopped reading.
Lila took the phone.
“Do you still have the original messages?”
“Yes.”
“Backed up?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Madelyn looked at me.
“I should have told you.”
“When?”
“The first day.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was scared.”
“Of losing your job?”
“At first.”
She rubbed her thumb against the edge of the phone.
“Then of Simon.”
Gideon had once told me that fear changed shape depending on who was experiencing it.
For me, Simon’s cruelty had been emotional and financial.
For Madelyn, his power came through employment, professional reputation and the fact that he knew she was about to become a single mother.
“What did he ask you to lie about?”
Lila asked.
Madelyn reached into her handbag and removed an envelope.
“He wants me to sign a statement saying you knew about our relationship before you left the house.”
“I didn’t leave the house.”
“I know.”
“He changed the locks.”
“I know that too.”
“How?”
“Because I heard him arranging it.”
My hands curled in my lap.
Madelyn continued.
“He had been planning the separation for months.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. At least four.”
She looked miserable.
“He kept asking the finance department to move money into different accounts. He said it was tax planning.”
Lila’s eyes sharpened.
“What accounts?”
“I copied what I could.”
A flash drive landed on the table.
That was the moment Madelyn Reese stopped being Simon’s mistress in my mind.
She became a witness.
Not innocent.
Not blameless.
But useful.
And possibly frightened enough to finally tell the truth.
Lila picked up the drive.
“What’s on this?”
“Emails. Calendar appointments. Some invoices.”
“To whom?”
“Warren Pike.”
My entire body went rigid.
Lila’s expression did not change.
“Say that again.”
“Warren Pike. Simon met with him at least three times over the last two years.”
“Did you attend?”
“No. They were marked private.”
“Location?”
“Usually restaurants. One meeting was at Simon’s office after everyone left.”
I leaned forward.
“Do you know who Warren Pike is?”
“No.”
I believed her.
Madelyn looked between Lila and me.
“Should I?”
I stood so quickly that the chair moved backward.
“I need a minute.”
I walked into the hallway.
My breathing had become shallow.
I hated that.
I hated that Simon could still make my body react when he wasn’t even in the room.
Then I saw Gideon at the far end of the reception area.
I hadn’t asked him to attend.
He had driven me because my rental car was being repaired, then said he would wait downstairs.
Apparently Lila had sent someone to get him.
He didn’t approach.
He simply stood near the window until I walked toward him.
“Pike,” I said.
Gideon’s face changed.
“Warren Pike?”
“Simon met with him three times in the last two years.”
“Are you certain?”
“Madelyn has calendar records.”
Gideon looked past me toward the conference room.
“Then this didn’t end seven years ago.”
“No.”
For the first time, I saw something close to anger in him.
Not explosive anger.
Something colder.
More disciplined.
“Gideon.”
“Yes?”
“Who exactly are you?”
He looked at me.
“What brought that on?”
“The fertility specialist you got me into has a nine-month waiting list.”
“That happens.”
“The private patient coordinator knew your name.”
He said nothing.
“And yesterday I received a pathology invoice.”
His expression shifted.
“It was already paid.”
“I told them to bill me.”
“I know.”
“The top of the invoice said Eleanor Croft Women’s Health Fund.”
Still nothing.
I stepped closer.
“Then today, while I was waiting for Dr. Nand’s test results, I searched the name.”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
“There is an Eleanor Croft Reproductive Research Wing at the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“And a Croft medical foundation.”
“Yes.”
“And a Croft Meridian Health Network.”
“Yes.”
His answers were becoming irritatingly short.
“Are those Crofts related to you?”
He looked through the glass doors of Lila’s office at the traffic outside.
Finally, he said, “Yes.”
“How?”
“The foundation is mine.”
I stared at him.
“Yours?”
“My family established it.”
“Your family.”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means this probably isn’t the hallway where we should have this conversation.”
I laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
“Of course it isn’t.”
He looked at me carefully.
“Rachel.”
“You let me think you were a retired county sheriff living on a pension.”
“I am a retired county sheriff.”
“You also apparently have a hospital wing.”
“My wife’s name is on the hospital wing.”
“Gideon.”
“Yes.”
“Are you rich?”
For the first time since I had known him, Gideon looked uncomfortable.
It was almost satisfying.
“Define rich.”
“Oh, that is never a reassuring answer.”
A receptionist glanced toward us.
Gideon lowered his voice.
“My family owns several private companies.”
“How many?”
“A few.”
“What kind?”
“Healthcare logistics. Insurance. Medical real estate. Some agricultural holdings.”
“And Croft Meridian?”
“I’m chairman.”
I stared at him.
Croft Meridian was not a company people in our region ignored.
It operated hospitals.
Specialty practices.
Emergency transport services.
Research partnerships.
I had seen the name on buildings for years.
“Why were you a sheriff?”
“Because I wanted to be.”
“That isn’t an explanation.”
“My grandfather expected me to spend my life in boardrooms. I preferred criminal justice.”
“So you became a deputy?”
“Yes.”
“Then sheriff.”
“Yes.”
“And after retiring?”
“I returned to the family board.”
I crossed my arms.
“How rich?”
“Rachel.”
“How rich?”
He sighed.
“I don’t know what answer would make this conversation less strange.”
“Try the truthful one.”
“My interests are held through family trusts. Most valuations are private.”
“That is not the truthful one.”
“It is the accurate one.”
“Gideon.”
He finally looked directly at me.
“Enough that I don’t worry about money.”
I stared.
“That means billionaire.”
He gave no answer.
Which was answer enough.
I sat down in one of Lila’s reception chairs.
Across the road from my house, for nine years, had lived a man Simon casually referred to as “that lonely old sheriff.”
Simon once complained because Gideon’s fence needed painting.
Another time, he joked that Gideon probably spent his retirement watching game shows and polishing his badge.
Meanwhile Gideon Croft chaired one of the largest privately held healthcare networks in the Mid-Atlantic region.
I covered my face.
“This is insane.”
Gideon sat in the chair across from me.
“I didn’t hide it from you specifically.”
“You hide it from everyone.”
“I value privacy.”
“You live in a farmhouse with a twelve-year-old truck.”
“Thirteen.”
“That is not helping.”
A small smile touched his mouth.
I should have been angry.
Part of me was.
But another part suddenly understood things that had confused me.
The immediate appointment.
Lila Hart.
The controlled confidence.
The fact that investigators, doctors and attorneys returned Gideon’s calls.
Then another thought arrived.
“Does Simon know?”
“Know what?”
“Who you are.”
“I doubt it.”
“How could he not?”
“Professionally, I usually use my middle initial. G. Elias Croft. I don’t attend many public events anymore.”
I stared at him.
“And Simon has never connected the name?”
“Apparently not.”
I remembered Simon laughing about the old sheriff across the road.
For the first time in weeks, I smiled.
Not because Gideon was wealthy.
Money had already taught me how quickly people could become cruel when they thought it gave them power.
I smiled because Simon had spent nine years looking across the road and seeing a man he considered beneath him.
And Simon had been wrong.
Again.
The conference room door opened.
Lila stepped out holding Madelyn’s flash drive.
Her expression was serious.
“We have a problem.”
My smile disappeared.
“What?”
She looked at Gideon.
“One of these invoices isn’t from Simon personally.”
“Who is it from?”
“Arden Clinical Systems.”
Simon’s company.
Lila held up a printed page.
“It paid Warren Pike eighty-four thousand dollars over the last eighteen months.”
Gideon stood.
“For what?”
“The descriptions are vague.”
Lila turned the paper around.
MEDICAL DATA CONSULTING.
My stomach tightened.
Simon had not simply lied about his fertility six years earlier.
May you like
Whatever he was doing with Warren Pike had continued.
And if Madelyn’s records were correct, it had become business.
