Chương 10
“Most clients do at some point.”
“What does it change?”
“It helps establish that concerns about your mental state were being documented for reasons that may not have been purely medical. It may affect how we approach temporary arrangements and communication.”
“May.”
“Yes.”
Rachel pulled her coat tighter.
“I want a clean answer.”
“You hired the wrong profession.”
Rachel almost smiled.
Karen continued.
“Your strongest position is still not to turn this into a contest over who can produce the ugliest screenshot.”
“What is it, then?”
“Decide what you want.”
Rachel stared at traffic.
“I want him away from me.”
“That’s one thing.”
“I want Noah safe.”
“Another.”
“I want Derek to stop telling everyone I’m unstable.”
“That may be harder to control.”
“I want my job back.”
Karen looked at her.
Rachel surprised herself.
She had not planned to say it.
“My old job,” Rachel said. “Or not that exact one. I want work. My own money. I want an apartment where nobody can tell me I’m allowed to be there.”
Karen nodded.
“That’s useful.”
“Why?”
“Because eventually this stops being about escaping one night. You need a life on the other side.”
The phrase stayed with Rachel.
A life on the other side.
That evening she opened the website of the museum where she had worked before Noah.
Her old position had been filled.
Of course it had.
The museum had not paused because Rachel Hayes married money and disappeared into a mansion.
She emailed her former supervisor anyway.
Not asking for a job.
Asking for coffee.
Derek sent eighteen messages that night.
Some angry.
Some apologetic.
Some practical.
One photograph of the empty nursery.
Rachel stared at that one for a long time.
You’re destroying our family over one bad night.
Then:
I know Mom filled your head with something today.
Rachel’s stomach tightened.
How did he know?
She called Margaret.
Margaret answered on the first ring.
“Did you tell Derek we met?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was someone following you?”
Margaret became silent.
Rachel felt cold.
“Margaret.”
“I saw a car outside the hotel.”
“What car?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you recognize the driver?”
“No.”
Rachel called Karen.
Karen told her not to assume surveillance without evidence.
Daniel checked estate vehicle logs.
Nothing obvious.
Edward said Derek’s driver had been off duty.
Lena said rich people were exhausting.
For two days, they found no answer.
Then Marisol solved it by accident.
She was standing at the kitchen counter scrolling through social media when she said, “Oh.”
Rachel looked up.
“What?”
Marisol turned the phone.
A charity lifestyle account had posted photographs from the hotel lobby.
In the blurred background of one image, Rachel and Margaret were visible at the café table.
Public.
Ordinary.
No spy.
No private investigator.
Just the modern world casually recording itself.
Rachel sat down.
“I’m losing my mind.”
“No,” Marisol said. “You made a reasonable guess and it was wrong.”
The distinction mattered.
Rachel called Margaret and apologized for accusing her.
Margaret was silent for several seconds.
Then she said, “Thank you.”
Rachel almost added something kind.
She did not.
Trust was not a switch.
Derek’s attorneys proposed a temporary parenting schedule.
Rachel read it at Karen’s office while Noah slept in a carrier beside her chair.
Several supervised daytime visits at a neutral location.
No overnight visits initially.
Written communication.
Neither parent to disparage the other publicly.
Rachel stared at the page.
“I thought he’d demand more.”
Karen said, “His lawyer may be giving him good advice.”
“That’s irritating.”
“Good lawyers often are.”
Rachel looked down at Noah.
“He gets to hold him.”
“If you agree.”
Rachel’s chest tightened.
Every instinct said no.
But another part of her—one she did not want to listen to—remembered Derek at the hospital.
Hey, buddy.
Hey, buddy.
Hey, buddy.
Derek had frightened Rachel.
She had not seen him harm Noah.
That distinction mattered too.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“If I say no?”
“We discuss why.”
“What if the reason is I don’t trust him?”
“That’s a reason. Then we examine what conditions address the risk.”
Rachel looked at Karen.
“You’re not going to tell me he’s a monster.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t need me to choose a character in your marriage. You need me to help you make defensible decisions for yourself and your child.”
Rachel agreed to the supervised visits.
The first took place in a quiet family center.
Derek arrived early.
Rachel arrived three minutes late because Noah had spit up on both of them in the parking lot.
Derek stood when she entered.
For a second neither moved.
He looked thinner.
No tuxedo.
Navy sweater.
Jeans.
Ordinary Derek.
Rachel hated how much harder that was.
He looked at Noah.
“Hey.”
Rachel handed the baby to the supervisor.
Not directly to Derek.
She saw the pain.
Again, real.
Derek sat.
Noah stared at him.
“Hey, buddy.”
Rachel’s throat closed.
Same words.
Derek smiled weakly.
“You got bigger.”
It had been six days.
Rachel looked away.
During the visit she sat behind a glass partition with Karen’s assistant.
Derek fed Noah a bottle.
Incorrectly at first.
The supervisor corrected him.
Derek nodded.
He burped Noah.
Noah spit milk onto his sweater.
Derek laughed.
Not his networking laugh.
Not his sharp little breath of contempt.
A real laugh.
Rachel pressed her fist against her mouth.
The assistant beside her pretended not to notice.
When the visit ended, Derek handed Noah back through the supervisor.
Then he looked at Rachel.
“Can I talk to you for one minute?”
Karen had advised against private discussions.
Rachel said, “Here.”
Derek glanced at the supervisor.
“Fine.”
He swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel waited.
“For all of it.”
Her body went still.
Derek continued.
“I scared you. I grabbed you. I took your phone. I should not have done any of that.”
Rachel said nothing.
His eyes reddened.
“I keep replaying that night.”
“Which part?”
He looked confused.
“The gala.”
May you like
“What about the afternoon?”
He closed his mouth.
