Chương 4
Then a floorboard creaked overhead.
We both went quiet.
Caleb appeared halfway down the stairs wearing gray sweatpants and a T-shirt.
His hair was flattened on one side.
"Why is Mr. Vale still here?"
Marcus closed the laptop.
"Because your guardian has terrible coffee."
"This is our kitchen."
"I brought the coffee."
Caleb looked at me.
His eyes narrowed.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing you need to worry about tonight."
"That means something is wrong."
"Caleb."
"Is it the wedding?"
My silence answered too much.
He came down two more steps.
"Did Grant do something?"
Marcus looked away.
I stood.
"Go back to bed."
"Mara."
"Please."
Caleb gripped the railing.
For a moment, he looked older than twelve and younger than twelve at the same time.
"If you don't want to marry him, don't."
My chest tightened.
"It's complicated."
"It's actually not."
"You're twelve."
"That doesn't make things more complicated."
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
He did not.
"Just don't marry somebody because everybody already bought clothes."
Then he turned and climbed the stairs.
Marcus waited until Caleb's door closed.
"Smart kid."
"Annoying kid."
"Both can be true."
I stared at the staircase.
For months, I had told myself the wedding would make the children feel more secure.
Now Caleb had given me the first uncomplicated truth of the night.
I picked up my phone and opened Grant's last message.
Tomorrow is ours.
I typed a reply.
Can't wait.
Then I showed Marcus before sending it.
He studied my face.
"You've decided something."
"Yes."
"What?"
I pressed send.
"I'm not canceling tomorrow's plans."
Marcus's expression hardened.
"That sentence worries me."
"It should."
"Mara."
"I am not marrying him."
He relaxed by perhaps half an inch.
"But I'm also not warning him."
"Why?"
"Because I want to know what he's trying to outrun before he realizes I'm no longer standing where he left me."
Marcus leaned back in his chair and studied me with the expression he usually reserved for structural engineers who had just told him a support beam was probably fine.
"That is not a legal strategy."
"I didn't say it was."
"It's barely a sentence."
"It's enough for tonight."
"No, tonight is when frightened people make terrible decisions because morning feels too far away."
"I am not frightened."
"You threw up because of a phone call."
I glared at him.
"Fine."
He slid the legal pad closer.
"Then we proceed like adults who are frightened."
At one thirteen in the morning, Marcus called a financial investigator he had worked with during a business fraud case.
He did not tell her why he needed help beyond saying there was an urgent premarital asset concern and a possibly distressed business owner.
Her name was Dana Rourke, and she answered sounding wide awake, which made me suspicious of her as a person.
Marcus put her on speaker.
"What do you have?" she asked.
"Public filings, an LLC, a private lien, and a client who overheard something troubling."
"Overheard how?"
"Open phone connection."
"Recorded?"
"No."
"Then the conversation is intelligence, not evidence."
Marcus pointed at the speaker as if proving a point.
I mouthed that I hated both of them.
Dana continued, "Send me the corporate name, lien information, full legal name, date of birth if you have it, employer, known addresses, and anything related to borrowing."
"How fast can you turn something around?"
"Depends what exists."
"I need useful information tomorrow."
"You and everybody else."
Marcus looked at me.
"What can you do?"
Dana sighed.
"I can pull lawful public and commercial records and map connections."
She paused.
"I cannot hack accounts, impersonate anybody, or magically produce sealed records."
"I wasn't asking."
"Attorneys always say that right before asking."
I liked her immediately.
Marcus emailed the information while I searched an old travel reservation for Grant's birth date.
The intimacy of that task unsettled me.
His date of birth sat in my phone beside flight numbers from a weekend in Charleston when we had spent too much money on oysters and laughed because the hotel gave us a room with two double beds.
There were hundreds of harmless records of us.
Photos.
Shared grocery lists.
Restaurant reservations.
A saved note about the size of his dress shirts.
Trust had created an archive.
By two in the morning, Marcus finally packed his laptop.
"You have work."
"So do you."
"I have a wedding rehearsal."
"You have options."
I walked him to the door.
He stopped beneath the porch light.
"Do not be alone with Grant if you plan to confront him."
"I'm not confronting him."
"Do not get clever."
"I am deeply offended by how little faith you have in me."
"I have enormous faith in you."
He pulled his jacket tighter.
"I have very little faith in people operating on three hours of sleep and betrayal."
After he left, I checked the doors twice.
I had never checked them twice before.
I went upstairs and found Caleb asleep with his bedside lamp on.
June was sideways across her bed.
Maisie had kicked off both blankets.
I covered her and stood there longer than necessary.
Grant had called them leverage.
The word had entered my head and would not leave.
It made their sleeping bodies seem vulnerable in a way I could not tolerate.
I went into my room, took the garment bag from the closet door, and moved it into the guest room.
I did not know why.
I simply did not want the dress watching me.
Sleep came in short, ugly pieces.
At six twenty, I woke to the smell of toast burning.
Caleb had attempted breakfast.
I came downstairs to find him scraping blackened bread over the sink with a butter knife.
"You know we own more bread."
"This is salvageable."
"It is carbon."
"Toast is supposed to be burned."
"No civilization has ever agreed with you."
He looked at me over his shoulder.
"You look bad."
"Thank you."
"I mean tired."
"Much better."
May you like
He set the knife down.
"Are you still getting married?"
