Chương 9
“Then maybe there isn’t an answer yet.”
For the next three weeks, the Cole house developed a new routine.
Natalie moved into a furnished townhouse owned by a friend.
She saw Theo every day.
At first the visits happened at the mansion with Mrs. Alvarez or a mutually agreed caregiver present, not because anyone had formally declared Natalie unsafe, but because both attorneys wanted a stable temporary arrangement while everyone stopped making decisions in panic.
Adrian slept at the mansion.
He worked shorter hours.
The Phoenix acquisition closed without him attending the final dinner.
Claire knew because a case of expensive champagne arrived and sat unopened in the pantry for six days until Mrs. Alvarez threatened to put it in a mop closet.
Victoria came and went.
She and Adrian barely spoke unless someone else was present.
One afternoon Claire found Victoria in the linen room.
The same linen room.
The beige cart stood near the shelves.
The yellow rubber ducks had been returned to their basket.
Victoria was holding one.
Claire stopped in the doorway.
“I didn’t know you came in here.”
Victoria looked at the duck in her hand.
“I don’t.”
Claire waited.
Victoria put it back.
“Adrian told me you’re leaving.”
“Friday.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have interviews.”
“For what?”
“Hotel operations. Maybe a private medical office.”
“You hate medical offices.”
Claire frowned.
“How do you know that?”
“You complain about the fluorescent lighting.”
Claire stared at her.
Victoria almost smiled.
“People hear things.”
Claire leaned against the doorframe.
“Are you okay?”
Victoria’s expression closed automatically.
Then reopened.
“No.”
It was a small answer.
Claire nodded.
Victoria ran one finger along a folded towel.
“I keep thinking about the forty-eight hours.”
Claire knew immediately what she meant.
The time Victoria thought she had bought before Ethan’s death.
“I told him to wait,” Victoria said. “He called me twice on May twenty-first. I ignored the first call because I was at dinner.”
Claire said nothing.
“The second time, I answered and told him he was making everything worse.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘You always think delay is the same thing as control.’”
Victoria smiled without humor.
“He was unbearable when he was right.”
Claire looked at the shelves.
“What would have happened if he told Adrian?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep trying to answer that like there was one correct version.”
Victoria looked at her.
Claire shrugged.
“Maybe Adrian hits him. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Natalie leaves. Maybe Ethan changes his mind about being a father. Maybe everybody does worse than they’re doing now.”
“That is supposed to help?”
“No.”
Victoria laughed softly.
Claire continued.
“But you didn’t kill him by asking him to wait.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“I know that intellectually.”
“Intellectually is useless at three in the morning.”
Victoria looked at her.
“Yes.”
The word came almost as a whisper.
Claire picked up a stack of pillowcases.
Victoria said, “I offered you money too.”
Claire stopped.
“Not yet.”
“I considered it.”
Claire turned.
Victoria’s expression was embarrassed.
“I considered asking Samuel whether we could give you a confidentiality agreement and severance package before you spoke to anyone.”
Claire stared at her.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I heard Ethan telling me delay wasn’t control.”
Claire let out a breath.
Victoria looked at the cart.
“I disliked him for being right even after he died.”
That was the most human thing Claire had ever heard her say.
On Claire’s last official day, Adrian asked her to come to the study.
Natalie was already there.
So was Samuel.
Claire stopped inside the door.
“What happened?”
Natalie looked furious.
Adrian looked worse.
Samuel looked like a man whose throat had strong opinions about the entire family.
He gestured toward a chair.
“Sit.”
Claire did.
Samuel placed a printed screenshot on the table.
It was a message thread between Claire and Natalie.
Only it was incomplete.
The line in which Natalie told Claire to keep Theo away from Adrian appeared.
The lines before it did not.
Neither did the messages about the DNA report.
Claire stared at the page.
“Where did this come from?”
Natalie crossed her arms.
“My attorney received it anonymously this morning.”
Adrian said, “So did one member of our board.”
Claire looked at him.
“What?”
“A cropped screenshot. No context. It makes it appear Natalie believed I was a danger to the baby and you were helping her remove him from the house.”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
“Who sent it?”
“We don’t know.”
Samuel said, “The board member called Adrian privately instead of forwarding it. For now.”
Claire looked at Natalie.
Natalie looked back.
“What?”
“You had the thread.”
“So did you.”
“Why would I send something that makes me look like a kidnapper?”
“I don’t know why anyone in this room does anything anymore.”
Adrian said, “Enough.”
Claire pulled out her phone.
Samuel raised a hand.
“Do not start deleting or forwarding.”
“I’m not.”
She opened the original messages.
There they were.
All of them.
Complete.
Samuel compared the screenshot.
“This is clearly cropped.”
Natalie said, “That doesn’t tell us who sent it.”
Victoria entered without knocking.
Everyone looked at her.
She stopped.
“What?”
Adrian held up the paper.
“Did you send this?”
Victoria’s face hardened.
“No.”
“You had access to the messages through Natalie.”
“I saw some of them.”
“Did you send them?”
“No.”
Adrian stood.
Victoria stared back.
“I said no.”
For the first time Claire heard genuine anger in her voice.
Not polished irritation.
Anger.
“Believe me or don’t, Adrian, but stop making me confess to things because I confessed to one.”
Silence.
Adrian sat.
Samuel picked up the screenshot.
“We have a larger problem.”
Claire looked at him.
“What?”
“If this gets outside the family before we establish context, people may infer all kinds of things. That Natalie believed the infant was unsafe with Adrian. That Claire was removing him. That there was a domestic incident. Possibly that the paternity dispute is connected.”
May you like
Natalie’s face went pale.
“My attorney knows about the test.”
