Chương 6
“No.”
“Cameras?”
“Retention is ninety days.”
“Door logs?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Executive access records were migrated when the building system changed. IT is checking archives.”
Claire looked at the copies again.
Her name sat beneath the transactions.
Clean.
Official.
Convincing.
Ethan’s message returned to her.
You knew more than you’re telling them.
“What if he says I approved it?”
Priya did not offer comfort.
“He probably will.”
The board placed Claire on temporary leave the next morning.
Peter called it a governance measure.
Claire called it being suspended.
Peter told her not to be childish.
She told him not to be seventy-one.
That ended the call.
Rachel drove her home.
Claire had lived with Ethan in a townhouse on East Seventy-Fourth Street for seven years, but federal agents were still executing a search warrant there, so home had become a furnished apartment owned by the company near Central Park.
The apartment had beige furniture and framed photographs of bridges.
Nothing in it belonged to her.
Rachel carried in two garment bags and a grocery sack.
“What’s that?” Claire asked.
“Food.”
“I can order food.”
“You ordered coffee for dinner last night.”
“That had milk.”
Rachel set the bag on the counter.
“You’re terrible in a crisis.”
“I stopped a yacht.”
“You also lost a shoe.”
Claire looked down.
Rachel had recovered the shoe from the marina.
It was inside one of the garment bags.
“I’m going to fire you.”
“You are on leave.”
Claire opened the refrigerator.
It contained bottled water and nothing else.
Rachel unpacked eggs, bread, yogurt, apples, cheese, and a rotisserie chicken.
“You shop like someone’s aunt.”
“I am someone’s aunt.”
“That explains everything.”
Rachel stopped.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Vanessa’s attorney called.”
Claire closed the refrigerator.
“Why?”
“She wants to speak with the FBI.”
“Good for her.”
“She also wants to speak with you.”
“No.”
“She says Ethan lied to her about the necklace.”
“That is not my problem.”
“She says he lied about other things.”
Claire folded her arms.
Still wearing the sapphire, Vanessa had left the yacht under federal escort. The necklace had been photographed, documented, and then taken into evidence after attorneys confirmed the serial number on the original appraisal.
Claire’s mother’s necklace.
Evidence bag.
The transformation made her feel ill.
“She can tell the FBI,” Claire said.
“She is.”
“Then she doesn’t need me.”
Rachel watched her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I hate when you do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re standing there silently in a judgmental blazer.”
“This is a cardigan.”
Claire sat at the kitchen counter.
Outside, the city moved toward evening.
Eventually she said, “Set it up.”
Vanessa arrived the next afternoon wearing jeans, a cream sweater, and sunglasses.
Without the sequined gown, the sapphires, and Ethan’s arm around her, she looked younger than thirty.
Claire disliked noticing that.
They met in a private conference room at Vanessa’s lawyer’s office. Both attorneys were present. Rachel sat against the wall.
Vanessa removed her sunglasses but did not put them away.
“I’m not here to apologize for sleeping with your husband,” she said.
Claire almost admired the efficiency.
“All right.”
“I mean, I know I should.”
“That sounds like the beginning of an apology.”
“It isn’t.”
“Good.”
Vanessa’s attorney shifted.
Vanessa ignored her.
“He told me you were separated.”
Claire looked at her.
Vanessa’s confidence faltered slightly.
“He said you stayed legally married because of the company.”
“Did you believe him?”
“For a while.”
“For how long?”
Vanessa looked away.
There it was.
Human ugliness arrived much more quietly than Claire expected.
Not villainy.
Just self-interest.
“I stopped believing him last summer,” Vanessa said.
“And kept seeing him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Vanessa gave a short, humorless laugh.
“You really want the honest answer?”
“Yes.”
“I liked him.”
Claire’s mouth tightened.
“He was exciting. He paid attention. He remembered things. He made stupid Tuesday nights feel important.”
Claire looked at the table.
That was familiar.
Painfully familiar.
Vanessa continued.
“And then once I knew he was lying, leaving would have meant admitting I had known.”
Claire looked up.
Vanessa shrugged.
“It gets harder to become a good person after you’ve already spent months being the bad one.”
Nobody spoke.
Claire’s attorney wrote something on a legal pad.
Vanessa looked annoyed by the writing.
“He gave me the necklace in February,” she said.
“What did he tell you?”
“That it came from an estate sale.”
“You told me on the yacht he said it was my mother’s.”
Vanessa’s cheeks colored.
“He told me that later.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“And you kept it.”
“Yes.”
Claire’s fingers curled under the table.
“Why?”
Vanessa looked at her directly.
“Because by then I hated you.”
Claire’s attorney stopped writing.
Claire said, “You didn’t know me.”
“I knew what he told me.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That you controlled everything. Money. His schedule. The company. That you humiliated him in front of people. That you threatened to ruin him if he left.”
Claire almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because parts of it were true in distorted ways.
She controlled budgets.
She corrected him in meetings when he exaggerated numbers.
She had once told him that if he tried to take control of her family’s company during a divorce, she would fight him until neither of them could afford to sleep.
He had taken those facts and built a woman Vanessa could hate.
“Do you still believe him?” Claire asked.
Vanessa looked down.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Vanessa reached into her bag.
Her attorney touched her wrist.
“We discussed this.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t.”
Vanessa pulled out her phone anyway.
She opened a series of messages.
“I asked him about the federal hold after we left the yacht. He told me not to speak to anyone. Then he told me you had authorized the payments.”
Claire’s back stiffened.
Vanessa pushed the phone across the table.
A message from Ethan read:
Claire signed all of it. Her credentials are everywhere. Worst case, this becomes a governance issue, not criminal.
May you like
Another:
Do not give them your phone.
