Chương 6
Claire sat straighter.
“What things?”
“Not criminal things, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“Bad investments. Money moved between accounts. His business was unstable for a while. I had family money in it. We were both embarrassed.”
“Did he steal from you?”
“No.”
“Did you steal from him?”
“No.”
“Then why hide it?”
“Because adults can create perfectly legal disasters they’d rather not explain.”
Claire rubbed her temple.
“Did you know he told me you were dead?”
Rebecca did not answer.
That silence was different.
Claire waited.
“I learned that three months ago.”
“How?”
“A woman named Linda Perez.”
Claire knew Linda.
Daniel’s former executive assistant.
“She saw me at a fundraiser in Arlington,” Rebecca said. “She looked like she’d seen a ghost. I made a joke about it. She didn’t laugh.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“She knew me?”
“She knew about you. Apparently Daniel had told people at his office that I died years ago.”
The lie had infrastructure.
That changed something.
“What did you do?”
“I confronted him.”
“What did he say?”
“That he would fix it.”
Claire laughed quietly.
Rebecca did too.
It was a terrible moment of recognition between strangers.
Claire disliked it.
“Why wait three months?”
Rebecca sighed.
“Because I’m not your hero.”
“I didn’t ask you to be.”
“I know. But I think you deserve the ugly version. I waited because Daniel was still paying part of the mortgage on the property we own together. I was afraid if I blew up his life, he’d stop. I’m sixty percent angry at him and forty percent angry at myself, and those numbers change every hour.”
Claire said nothing.
“I also assumed you knew some version of the truth,” Rebecca continued. “Not that he told you I was dead. I thought maybe you knew we were legally married and didn’t care.”
“I cared.”
“I know that now.”
“What changed two weeks ago?”
“He said your lawyer needed documents.”
Claire looked at the estate-planning folder still sitting on the desk.
“He wanted the divorce.”
“Yes.”
“And you threatened to tell me.”
“I told him if he was finally going to clean up his life, he needed to clean up all of it.”
“That sounds almost noble.”
“It wasn’t.”
Rebecca’s voice sharpened.
“I was furious that he could walk away and become legitimate with you after leaving me to deal with years of shared financial garbage. I wanted him uncomfortable. I wanted him afraid. I wanted him to have to tell you himself.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“So you did.”
“Yes.”
Claire stared at the ring on her left hand.
“Why pay for dinner?”
Rebecca was silent for several seconds.
“Because years ago, when Daniel and I were married in the ordinary sense, that restaurant was where we went when we pretended things were better than they were.”
Claire looked toward the crumpled anniversary card visible through the open bedroom door upstairs.
“Was it your anniversary restaurant?”
“No. That would have been almost too ridiculous.”
Despite herself, Claire smiled.
Rebecca continued.
“I saw the reservation email. Seventh anniversary. Special request, romantic table. He used the old account without realizing it. I sat with that email for an hour. Then I called.”
“You could have sent me a message.”
“I didn’t know your number.”
“You found it last night.”
“After.”
Claire believed that.
She did not know why.
“Are you still his wife?”
“Legally? Yes.”
“And me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he ever file for divorce?”
“Not until yesterday.”
Claire’s throat tightened.
“Yesterday.”
“He had his attorney send papers.”
Before the anniversary dinner.
So Daniel had been moving toward a disclosure.
Or toward preventing one.
Both could be true.
Claire said, “I need copies of anything you’re willing to give me. Marriage records. Property agreements. Anything that proves your timeline.”
Rebecca exhaled slowly.
“I can do that.”
“Email only.”
“Okay.”
“And Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
“If you contact the restaurant again, leave my dinner alone.”
A tiny pause.
“Fair.”
Claire ended the call.
At ten that morning, she phoned the estate attorney.
At eleven thirty she was sitting in a conference room with a woman named Dana Collins, who wore navy flats and had the unnerving habit of listening all the way to the end of a sentence before speaking.
Claire told her everything.
Almost everything.
She omitted the slap until Dana asked whether there had been any physical confrontation.
Claire looked at the carpet.
“I hit him once.”
Dana nodded.
“Open hand?”
“Yes.”
“In public?”
“Yes.”
“Any police involvement?”
“No.”
“Any injury?”
“Red cheek. That’s all I saw.”
Dana wrote something down.
Claire felt ashamed again.
“Do not hit him again,” Dana said.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“I’m not scolding you. I’m protecting you from creating a separate problem.”
Claire nodded.
Dana reviewed the documents Claire had brought: their marriage certificate, house deed, joint accounts, beneficiary statements, insurance information.
She did not offer instant conclusions.
That reassured Claire.
“I’m going to have to verify records,” Dana said. “The fact that a certificate exists doesn’t answer every question about the legal status of the marriage. And we need to understand exactly what Daniel represented, where, and when.”
“So am I his wife?”
“I can’t responsibly answer that today.”
Claire stared at her.
“That is a very expensive way of saying I don’t know.”
Dana smiled slightly.
“It is.”
The humor helped.
A little.
“Protect your own access to money,” Dana said. “Don’t drain joint accounts. Don’t destroy anything. Don’t change his passwords. Do change yours. Save copies of records you are entitled to access. Redirect your paycheck to an individual account if it currently goes into a joint one.”
Claire took notes.
“Should I call the police?”
“Do you feel unsafe?”
“No.”
“I mean about the marriage.”
May you like
Dana paused.
“There may be legal issues beyond family law depending on what documents were signed and what representations were made. I’m not going to speculate before I review the record. If referral to another attorney or an agency becomes appropriate, I’ll tell you.”
