Chương 5
“Dominic also prepared the financial summary you relied on, which omitted several material facts.”
Claire glanced toward the phone folder. “You opened the files?”
“Some. I need your consent to bring in a forensic accountant.”
“Do it.”
“Your trust statements show transfers to an entity called North Orchard Consulting. Do you recognize it?”
“No.”
“Your father is listed as the registered manager.”
The monitor continued its quiet rhythm.
Claire stared at Naomi’s face. “That’s impossible.”
“I pulled the public registration. Charles Mercer formed the company eighteen months ago.”
“My father has never been a consultant.”
“What did he do before retirement?”
“He ran regional operations for a manufacturing company.”
“Did Dominic advise him financially?”
“Yes, but—”
Naomi let the unfinished sentence remain.
Claire’s mouth had gone dry. “How much?”
“I’m not going to give you a number until the accountant verifies the transfers. The file appears to include more than one account and at least one amended return.”
“How much did you see?”
“Claire.”
“How much?”
“Just under nine hundred thousand dollars over fourteen months.”
Claire looked at the clear IV bag. A drop formed, released, and vanished down the tube.
“That can’t be from my trust.”
“Not all of it. Some originated from a joint investment account. Some may have passed through a line of credit secured by your brokerage assets.”
“I never signed a line of credit.”
“There is a signature.”
“I didn’t sign it.”
“I believe you. We still have to prove it.”
Claire pressed the heel of her right hand to her forehead and stopped when she touched the bandage.
Naomi lowered her voice. “There are also two life insurance policies on you that I did not prepare.”
Claire looked at Celia, though Celia could not hear through Claire’s earbud.
“How much?”
“Combined, eight million dollars.”
“Beneficiary?”
“Dominic is primary. North Orchard Consulting is contingent on one policy.”
The hospital room seemed to enlarge around Claire. The white walls moved farther away. Her mother’s earrings flashed in memory, bright and hard.
“My father’s company.”
“Yes.”
“Are the policies real?”
“They appear to be, but we need confirmation from the carriers. One application contains medical information that may have come from records or may have been supplied inaccurately.”
“Could Dominic take out insurance without me knowing?”
“Not ordinarily in the way these documents suggest. Your signature appears on both applications. One includes a recorded consent call.”
“I never did a call.”
“Then we preserve everything and proceed carefully.”
Claire’s stomach turned. “Are you saying he planned to kill me?”
“I am saying we do not know what these documents mean yet.”
“Eight million dollars means something.”
“It does. It does not prove murder.”
“He put his hands around my throat.”
“I know.”
“And my father’s company gets money if Dominic doesn’t.”
“I know.”
Claire’s voice rose enough to hurt. “Then stop talking to me like this is a misunderstanding.”
Naomi’s expression remained composed, but the muscles along her jaw tightened. “I am talking to you like your attorney. Fear can keep you alive. It can also make you say something publicly that Dominic’s lawyers will use to discredit you. We will not give them that.”
Claire turned her face away.
For a few seconds Naomi said nothing. Then, more gently, “You did the right thing by copying the documents.”
“I copied them three weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you call me then?”
Claire watched her reflection faintly layered over the ICU window. Bruised face, oxygen tube, dark hair tangled over one shoulder.
“I wanted an explanation that let me stay married.”
Naomi nodded once, without approval or judgment. “That makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It makes human sense.”
After the call, Claire asked Celia to turn off the overhead light. The fluorescent panels went dark, leaving the room lit by monitor glow, corridor spill, and the city beyond the windows. Cars moved along the highway in white and red lines. Somewhere below, an ambulance siren approached the emergency entrance and cut off abruptly.
Claire tried to sleep.
Every time her breathing slowed, she felt Dominic’s hand at her throat.
At two in the morning, she asked for the social worker.
Beth returned with her green glasses slightly crooked and a paper cup of coffee she never drank. She sat beside the bed while Claire described the first time Dominic had hurt her.
It had not looked like violence. That was what Claire had told herself.
They had been married eleven months. Dominic had come home late from a client dinner and found her in bed with her laptop. She asked why he had not answered her messages. He said she embarrassed him by calling twice while he was with senior partners. Claire laughed because she thought he was teasing. Dominic closed the laptop on her fingers—not hard enough to break them, only hard enough to make her gasp. Then he apologized and held ice against her knuckles.
The next morning he sent flowers to her office. The card said, I hate who I become when I think I’m disappointing you.
Claire had kept the card.
Beth asked why.
“I thought it proved he loved me.”
“What does it prove to you now?”
Claire looked at the ceiling. “That he knew how to make the injury about his pain.”
Beth wrote nothing down. “Was that the only incident that year?”
“No.”
May you like
Claire told her about the wineglass thrown into the sink beside her hand. The car driven too fast while Dominic asked why she had contradicted him at dinner. The grip above her elbow that left four yellow bruises before a charity luncheon. The phone passwords he called transparency. The private account he convinced her to close because married people should not prepare for failure.
She also told Beth about the good parts because leaving them out felt dishonest. Dominic made coffee for her every morning and remembered she hated cinnamon. He sat on the bathroom floor with Milo during thunderstorms. When Claire’s grandmother died, he handled the funeral calls and kept Lorraine from changing the hymns. He once drove three hours back to a hotel because Claire had left her father’s fountain pen in the room.
