Part 5
Marcus rubbed one thumb across the seam of his trousers. “You were not well.”
“That’s his answer.”
“It can be his answer and still be true.”
Clara looked at him.
He did not lower his eyes.
“You asked everyone around you not to bring you problems,” he continued. “Your assistant screened your calls. Mr. Bennett said your doctors wanted no shocks. I believed him because I wanted to. My health insurance comes through Laurel House. My daughter’s tuition benefit does too.”
“So you protected your job.”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than an excuse would have.
“Did my mother ever ask you to lie for her?”
“Yes.”
Clara blinked.
Marcus leaned back slightly. “She asked me not to tell you how frightened she was before her surgery. She asked me to tell the board her flight was delayed when she was sitting in the car crying. She asked me to take your father to an apartment in Brooklyn twice.”
Clara stared.
“I don’t know who lived there,” he said. “I didn’t ask. Drivers learn that loyalty and silence are not always the same thing, but sometimes you only understand the difference afterward.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because if you ask whether I knew, the answer is not one answer.”
Clara stood and went to the window.
A pigeon landed on the opposite ledge, pecked at something invisible, and flew away.
“Did you drive Grant to a lawyer?” she asked.
“Several times.”
“Which lawyer?”
“I can give Ms. Park the addresses.”
“Anything else?”
Marcus hesitated.
She turned.
“Say it.”
“He asked me to take boxes from the mansion to a storage facility in New Jersey.”
“When?”
“Three days after you entered the clinic.”
“What boxes?”
“Bankers’ boxes. Files from your father’s study.”
“You knew those were private.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I have the address.”
“Unit number?”
“No.”
“Who met you?”
“A man from Grant’s office. Daniel Cross.”
Clara knew the name. Daniel was the company’s deputy chief financial officer, a narrow-faced man who corrected other people’s grammar in emails and sent handwritten thank-you notes after business dinners.
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“You didn’t ask me earlier.”
The answer angered her because it sounded like something she might have said.
“Get out.”
Marcus rose.
At the door, he stopped. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Would you have told me if I hadn’t come back today?”
He considered it.
“I don’t know.”
Clara nodded once.
“That is probably the first useful thing anyone has said to me.”
After he left, she locked the door and placed a chair beneath the handle, though the lock worked.
At 7:18 p.m., her new phone rang.
The number was unfamiliar.
Clara answered without speaking.
“Is this Clara?”
The bride’s voice.
Clara sat upright.
“Yes.”
“My name is Isabelle Mercer.”
“I know.”
Isabelle inhaled. “You assaulted me.”
“I threw wine at you.”
“You threw a glass of wine in my face.”
“Yes.”
“You ruined my dress.”
Clara looked down at her own evening dress, wrinkled now across the lap.
“I’m sorry about the dress.”
A hard, disbelieving laugh came through the phone.
“That’s what you’re sorry for?”
“It’s what I’m prepared to apologize for tonight.”
“You walked into my home—”
“It is not your home.”
“Grant said—”
“I imagine Grant said many things.”
Silence.
Clara could hear a faucet running in the background. Then it stopped.
“We were married this morning,” Isabelle said.
“Where?”
“The courthouse.”
“In what state?”
“New York.”
“What name did he use for his previous spouse?”
“Yours.”
“And what did he show you?”
“That is none of your business.”
“It became my business when he divorced me at an address where I have never lived.”
Isabelle said nothing.
Clara leaned back against the headboard.
“He told you I knew, didn’t he?”
“You were served.”
“No.”
“The divorce was finalized.”
“Through fraud.”
“That’s not what the court found.”
“The court found what he paid someone to present.”
Isabelle’s breathing changed.
Clara closed her eyes. She pictured the woman at the mansion rinsing wine from her face, pearl pins still in her hair, Grant standing behind her and explaining too quickly.
“Look at the service address,” Clara said. “Then look at the date. Ask him where I was.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“No. I expect you to read.”
“You humiliated me.”
“Yes.”
“You could have spoken to me.”
“I had been in the house for less than a minute when my husband told me I had no right to stand in my own hallway.”
“That doesn’t excuse what you did.”
“No.”
The answer seemed to unsettle Isabelle more than denial would have.
Clara heard a door open on the other end.
“Who are you talking to?” Grant asked, his voice distant.
Isabelle ended the call.
At 7:31 p.m., Grant called.
Clara declined it.
He called again.
She declined that too.
Then came a message.
Do not contact my wife again.
Clara stared at the words until they blurred.
A second message appeared.
The security footage is clear. Stay away from the property or I will involve the police.
A third.
You need help.
That sentence reached farther than the others.
It took her back to the clinic’s admissions room, where Grant had sat beside her holding a clipboard. He had touched the back of her neck and said, You need help, Clara. Let someone help you.
She put the phone facedown.
Five minutes later, Naomi called.
“Grant’s attorney contacted me.”
“Which one?”
“Martin Shaw.”
“I know him.”
“Apparently he knows everything except the ethical implications of speaking before thinking.”
“What does Grant want?”
“A temporary non-contact agreement. He says you entered the mansion without permission, attacked his spouse, threatened him, and left in a company vehicle you were not authorized to use.”
“It’s my car.”
“The registration was transferred to Laurel Executive Services four months ago.”
“Which I own.”
May you like
“Grant claims you don’t currently have operational authority.”
Clara stood and began pacing the narrow strip between the bed and desk.
