Chương 10
Rebecca had not known I was there.
“Who is that?”
I leaned toward the table.
“Chloe.”
Rebecca inhaled.
“Oh God.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh God.”
“What records?”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No.”
“Rebecca, you said you saw medical records.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
My fingers went numb.
Harrison looked at me.
I shook my head once.
I had not given Rebecca access to anything.
“What exactly did you see?” Elaine asked.
Rebecca went silent again.
“This is Elaine Porter, Chloe’s attorney.”
“Of course it is.”
“Tell us what you saw.”
“I need my own lawyer.”
“That is probably wise.”
“Elaine,” Harrison snapped.
“She does.”
Elaine did not look at him.
“Rebecca, before you end this call, tell us whether those records came from Chloe’s divorce counsel, her medical provider, or somewhere else.”
Rebecca’s breathing became audible.
“Not her lawyer.”
“Her provider?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not helpful.”
“I received a PDF from Margaret.”
My stomach turned.
“What was in it?”
“A prenatal ultrasound report.”
I felt the room narrow.
Harrison whispered, “Before the birth?”
“Yes.”
“How far along?”
“Thirteen weeks.”
I stopped breathing.
Thirteen weeks.
That was the first ultrasound showing three sacs.
Three heartbeats.
The appointment where the technician had gone quiet and then smiled.
The appointment where I had laughed because terror had been the only other available reaction.
I had sent the report to one person outside my medical team.
My first divorce attorney.
Not Harrison.
Not his counsel.
Not Margaret.
Elaine stared at me.
“You never told me that.”
“You weren’t representing me yet.”
Harrison looked between us.
“Who was?”
I already knew the answer mattered.
My mouth felt dry.
“Thomas Keene.”
Harrison went still.
Rebecca made a small sound on the phone.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
I leaned forward.
“You know him.”
She did not answer.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Another silence.
Then she said, “Because Thomas Keene was the one Margaret was paying.”
Harrison did not move.
Elaine did.
She reached for the phone and pulled it closer to the center of the table.
“Rebecca, define paying.”
“No.”
“You just accused an attorney of taking money from someone who was not his client.”
“I know what I said.”
“Then define it.”
Rebecca breathed in through her nose.
“It wasn’t a retainer.”
“What was it?”
“Consulting payments.”
“To Keene personally?”
“To an LLC.”
Elaine’s pen moved again.
“Name.”
“North Harbor Advisory.”
I knew that name.
Not from the divorce.
From discovery.
A line item buried in one of Harrison’s corporate expense reports.
I looked at him.
His face told me he knew it too.
“North Harbor,” I said.
He nodded once.
“That contract.”
“The eight million?”
“No.”
His voice was flat.
“Different one.”
Elaine looked between us.
“How much?”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand over eighteen months.”
Rebecca said, “It started before the divorce.”
Harrison’s eyes sharpened.
“How long before?”
“About six months.”
I felt something colder than anger.
“Why was my divorce attorney being paid through a company connected to your mother before I hired him?”
“No,” Rebecca said quickly.
“I didn’t say connected to her.”
“Then connected to whom?”
Silence.
“Rebecca.”
“Harrison’s family office.”
Nobody spoke.
Harrison’s face changed first.
Not shock this time.
Something closer to betrayal becoming geometry.
His family office handled trusts, philanthropy, property, tax structures, and the quiet financial machinery that kept the Sterling name separated from the company whenever convenient and entwined with it whenever useful.
“My mother didn’t control every family-office payment,” he said.
“No,” Rebecca replied.
“But she controlled that one.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I processed the authorization.”
Harrison stood so abruptly the chair rolled backward.
Elaine’s hand flattened against the table.
“Sit down.”
He ignored her.
“Why would my mother hire a divorce attorney six months before my divorce?”
Rebecca gave no answer.
He looked at the phone as if she were physically inside it.
“Rebecca.”
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“I know what she told me.”
“What?”
“That Keene was useful.”
“For what?”
“She said he understood Chloe.”
My skin prickled.
I remembered Thomas Keene’s office.
Dark wood.
Too much expensive art.
The way he had seemed unsurprised when I described Harrison’s accusation.
The way he had advised me not to contact Harrison directly because “men in control spirals interpret persistence as provocation.”
At the time, I had thought it was insight.
Now I wondered whether it had been instruction.
Elaine’s voice sharpened.
“Rebecca, did Margaret Sterling recommend Keene to Chloe?”
“No.”
I answered before she could.
“A woman from the university foundation did.”
Harrison looked at me.
“Who?”
“Marian Feld.”
His expression went blank.
“What?”
“You know her?”
“My mother sat on the foundation board with her for twelve years.”
The room became very quiet.
I felt stupid.
Not because I should have known.
Because hindsight always dresses itself like intelligence.
Marian Feld had called me two days after Harrison left our house.
She had been kind without being intimate.
She said she had gone through a difficult divorce herself.
She gave me Keene’s name.
I had been sleeping three hours a night and vomiting every morning.
I thanked her.
I never asked who had given her mine.
Elaine spoke carefully.
“Chloe, did Keene ever advise you not to disclose the pregnancy directly to Harrison?”
“Yes.”
Harrison turned toward me.
“He did?”
“After I told him.”
“When?”
“Before the first ultrasound.”
“What exactly did he say?”
I looked at the table.
The memory came back with irritating clarity.
Keene had folded his hands over a yellow legal pad.
He had asked whether I was certain about the pregnancy.
I had said yes.
He asked whether Harrison had a temper.
I said not physically.
He asked whether Harrison used money and access to control outcomes.
I said sometimes.
Then Keene had leaned back and told me something that had sounded protective.
“He said early disclosure could expose me to coercion before we had temporary orders.”
Harrison stared at me.
“And you listened.”
May you like
“I was paying him to advise me.”
His mouth tightened.
