Chương 5
“No.”
“Did you have a title?”
“No.”
“Did you receive equity?”
Trevor had once promised they would discuss it.
“No.”
Lenora’s mouth tightened, but she made no comment.
Naomi showed her the messages and documents.
The attorney read slowly. She did not gasp at the affair photographs. She spent most of her time on the forged signature.
“Do you recognize this notary?”
“No.”
“She was dead at the date of notarization, according to Mr. Cole.”
“Do you trust Mr. Cole?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good. Keep not knowing until the evidence earns something else.”
Lenora called a white-collar defense attorney named Ellis Grant. He arrived an hour later wearing a wrinkled tan coat and carrying two phones. He apologized for being late, though he was seven minutes early.
Ellis examined the photographs without touching Naomi’s devices.
“You may be a victim,” he said. “You may also appear, on paper, to be a participant. We’re going to avoid doing anything that makes the second interpretation easier.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means no threats. No telling your husband that you’ll expose him unless he gives you a favorable divorce settlement. No contacting investors. No calling the press. No guessing in writing. We preserve what you lawfully accessed, document how you obtained it and determine who should receive it.”
“Should I report it to the police?”
“Not from your kitchen, and not before we understand what ‘it’ is.”
Naomi glanced at Lenora. “Everyone keeps telling me not to do things.”
“That is the first service lawyers provide during panic,” Lenora said. “We reduce the number of new mistakes.”
Ellis asked Naomi to describe exactly how she found the iPad and files. She repeated the sequence twice. On the second telling, she remembered that Trevor had taken the tablet when he returned for the charger.
Ellis wrote that down.
“Did you enter any password?”
“No.”
“Did you impersonate him to access an account?”
“No.”
“Did you alter, forward or delete messages?”
“No.”
“Did you copy company documents?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not automatically fatal. It is not automatically harmless either.”
The lack of certainty made Naomi trust him more.
By four, Lenora had arranged for Naomi to stay in an apartment owned by one of her firm’s partners who was working in London. It was in Brooklyn Heights, furnished, secure and unavailable through any public rental listing.
Naomi paid the first month from her personal checking account. The balance startled her. After six years in a penthouse, she possessed less liquid money in her own name than she had at twenty-eight.
She packed the final suitcase.
On the kitchen island, she placed her wedding ring beside a cream envelope.
The note inside contained two sentences.
You gave yourself seven days to decide whether to leave me. I needed one morning to decide I was gone.
She considered adding Sienna’s name. She did not.
Trevor deserved uncertainty.
The moving company Lenora recommended sent two women and a man named Jorge, who apologized each time a suitcase wheel touched the wall. Naomi wanted to tell him the walls were not hers anymore. Instead, she followed him through each room and identified what could leave.
The espresso machine remained.
So did the wedding photograph.
At 6:43 p.m., Naomi entered the elevator carrying her mother’s scarf, her laptop and the canvas document bag Ellis had given her.
The city outside had turned copper with sunset.
The penthouse looked larger without her belongings and no less complete. That hurt in a childish way. She had expected the rooms to reveal her absence immediately. Instead, the sofa remained centered, the lights glowed on schedule and the marble reflected an expensive calm.
The apartment had always been good at impersonating a life.
Naomi pressed the lobby button.
The doors closed on her ring.
Trevor did not call that night.
He sent one message at 9:12.
Long day. Dinner with the team. Hope you’re feeling better.
Naomi read it from the narrow bed in Brooklyn while pipes clicked behind the wall. The apartment smelled faintly of old books and someone else’s laundry detergent. A ceramic rabbit sat on the windowsill, facing the wrong direction.
She did not answer.
At 10:04, Sienna posted a photograph from a Miami restaurant. Only a plate of grilled fish, two drinks and a man’s wrist appeared in the frame. Naomi recognized Trevor’s watch.
She saved the post, then hated herself for checking.
At midnight, she got out of bed and ate dry cereal from a coffee mug because she could not find a bowl. She watched headlights move over the ceiling and listened to a couple arguing on the sidewalk.
“I said Thursday,” the woman shouted.
“You always say Thursday.”
The argument faded toward the river.
Naomi slept for two hours.
The next morning, Darius met her at a diner near Borough Hall. He arrived in a worn black jacket, carrying a motorcycle helmet even though Naomi remembered him claiming motorcycles were for men who wanted strangers to attend their funerals.
“You ride now?” she asked.
“It belongs to the guy whose couch I’m sleeping on.”
“You carried it here?”
“He said not to leave it near the door.”
Darius looked older than forty-one. Gray threaded his beard. A pale scar crossed one eyebrow. He had once been the most polished man at ValeRow after Trevor, with custom suits and a habit of correcting servers’ wine pronunciations. Now his shirt collar curled at one edge.
They sat in a booth beneath a framed photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Darius ordered coffee. Naomi ordered tea and did not drink it.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
“Probably.”
“You could make this easier.”
“I could. But then you’d think I’d changed.”
May you like
The waitress brought coffee and asked whether they wanted menus. Darius ordered eggs. Naomi said she was not hungry, then ate half his toast when it arrived.
He opened a folder containing printed board minutes from three years earlier. One section documented a discussion of vendor diversity compliance. Darius had objected to placing nominal ownership of vendors under spouses or relatives. Trevor had responded that Darius was “creating unnecessary friction around standard structures.”
