Chương 12
Inside, the house smelled of lemon cleaner and plaster dust. The police had taken portions of the broken bowl and photographed everything else. A pale outline remained on the study wall where the bowl struck. The console table in the foyer had been moved six inches, exposing scrape marks on the floor.
Dominic had removed clothes, toiletries, two watches, his passport, and several boxes under police supervision. He had left framed photographs behind.
Claire walked slowly through the house with Evan nearby. In the kitchen, two coffee cups sat in the drying rack. Dominic had washed them before leaving.
That unsettled her more than the broken lamp.
In the bedroom, his side of the closet was mostly empty. One navy tie remained on the floor beneath the built-in drawers. Claire recognized it as the tie from his contact photo, though perhaps all his navy ties looked alike.
She sat on the edge of the bed.
The mattress shifted beneath her and memory took over—the careful way Dominic had tucked the blanket around her feet, the nights he woke from dreams and reached for her, the morning he proposed they try for a child.
Claire stood too quickly. Pain bent her forward.
Evan appeared in the doorway. “Do you need help?”
“No.”
She hated him for seeing her, though he had done nothing.
In the study, the laptop was gone. So were two filing boxes and the small safe from the cabinet. Detective Bennett already knew.
Claire opened the desk drawer where Dominic kept stamps and found a single dog biscuit.
She sat in his chair and cried so hard she had to call the visiting nurse because she could not catch her breath.
Milo came home after dusk. Mrs. Alvarez walked him across the lawn, and he approached Claire as carefully as he had at the hospital. He followed her from room to room that night, lying outside the bathroom door and beside the couch while she slept upright against cushions.
At three in the morning, the alarm panel chimed.
Claire woke with one hand around the hospital pillow.
The screen read REMOTE ACCESS ATTEMPT FAILED.
She called the security company. They confirmed someone using Dominic’s old credentials had tried to enter the system. The attempt had been blocked and logged.
Detective Bennett added it to the case.
The next day, Dominic’s attorney filed a motion challenging the emergency protection order. He alleged that Claire had initiated a physical confrontation after unlawfully accessing confidential business records. He requested supervised access to the house for additional property and demanded return of all copied files.
The filing described Claire as emotionally volatile, sleep-deprived, and financially controlling.
Attached was a photograph of the scratch on Dominic’s hand.
There were also excerpts from messages Claire had sent her mother.
I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Sometimes I want to burn his whole life down.
I checked his phone again. I hate who I am becoming.
Claire read them at the kitchen table while Naomi appeared on her laptop screen.
“My mother gave him those,” Claire said.
“Probably before the order. We’ll determine the source.”
“They make me sound unstable.”
“They make you sound distressed.”
“Judges know the difference?”
“Sometimes.”
Claire pushed the laptop away. “I did say I wanted to burn his life down.”
“Did you mean arson?”
“No.”
“Then context matters.”
“He has a photograph.”
“You have medical records.”
“He has my messages.”
“You have a witness who saw you crawling from the house.”
“He has a scratch.”
Naomi waited until Claire looked back at the screen.
“This is how it works,” she said. “He will not arrive in court wearing a sign that says dangerous husband. He will arrive groomed, represented, calm, and injured enough to support his version. We prepare for the person he is, not the villain people imagine.”
Claire hated the accuracy of it.
The full protection-order hearing was scheduled for the following week. Naomi brought in a forensic accountant named Priya Shah, who spoke quickly, wore red reading glasses, and refused to speculate.
Priya worked from copies of the encrypted folder, subpoenaed account records, and statements Claire could access. She discovered that Dominic had opened a securities-backed credit line using a forged version of Claire’s signature and an authorization page copied from an older trust distribution form. Funds moved through three accounts before reaching North Orchard.
Charles had signed several documents as North Orchard’s manager. Lorraine had signed one indemnification agreement as a witness.
The investment Charles described did not exist in the form Dominic had presented. A real logistics company had sought capital, but its acquisition closed without Dominic. The contracts Charles saw combined genuine public filings with altered terms and fabricated signatures.
“Where did the money go?” Claire asked.
Priya turned her laptop toward Claire. “Some covered losses in other accounts Dominic controlled. Some paid your parents’ carrying costs. Some went to personal expenditures. Roughly two hundred seventy thousand remains untraced pending additional records.”
“Personal expenditures for whom?”
“Dominic, mostly.”
She displayed payments for a private club, luxury travel, jewelry, and lease costs on an apartment in Chicago.
Claire stared at the address. “That apartment belongs to a client.”
“Do you know the client?”
“Sabine Holt. Her family owns a hotel group. Dominic advises their foundation.”
Priya looked over her red frames. “The lease is paid through North Orchard.”
Claire felt an old humiliation opening beneath the new ones. Sabine was thirty-eight, elegant, divorced, and always touched Dominic’s sleeve when laughing. Claire had asked about her once. Dominic had accused Claire of distrusting every successful woman near him.
“Are they having an affair?” Claire asked.
Priya removed her glasses. “The financial records do not answer that.”
“That means yes.”
“It means the financial records do not answer that.”
Naomi intervened. “Do not contact Sabine.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were looking at your phone.”
“I was checking the time.”
“It’s displayed on your laptop.”
May you like
Claire put the phone down.
That evening, she drove nowhere because the doctor had not cleared her. Instead she sat in the passenger seat of her own car in the garage, keys on the console, and listened to an old voicemail from Dominic.
