Chương 8
She loved it.
Numbers stayed where they were entered.
Finish samples did not raise their voices.
A bad specification could be corrected.
On Wednesday, she spent forty minutes arguing with a manufacturer about the undertone of gray.
It was the best forty minutes of her week.
At lunch, Leah sat across from her at a sandwich shop.
Leah had been Claire’s friend since college and disliked Ethan with an intensity she had spent years disguising badly.
“So,” Leah said, “am I allowed to say I hate him now?”
Claire peeled the paper from her sandwich.
“No.”
Leah nodded.
“Okay.”
Claire looked up.
“That’s it?”
“You said no.”
“I expected you to argue.”
“I’m trying personal growth.”
Claire smiled.
Leah ate a potato chip.
Thirty seconds passed.
“I still hate him privately.”
“Thank you.”
Claire’s smile disappeared.
“I miss him.”
Leah did not answer immediately.
That was why Claire had called her.
Most people rushed to fill that sentence.
You shouldn’t.
That’s normal.
You miss who you thought he was.
Leah simply chewed.
Finally she said, “Yeah.”
Claire looked at her.
“That’s all?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were married fourteen years.”
Claire picked at the crust of her sandwich.
“I keep thinking about stupid things.”
“Like?”
“He cuts peaches wrong.”
Leah frowned.
“How do you cut a peach wrong?”
“Exactly.”
For the first time in days, Claire laughed without immediately feeling guilty.
Then she said, “He slices around the pit and twists it like an avocado. It never works. Every summer he does it anyway.”
Leah nodded solemnly.
“Monster.”
Claire laughed again.
Her eyes filled.
Leah looked out the window while Claire wiped them.
Two weeks later, Ethan came to the house with a police standby to collect clothing and personal items.
Claire considered leaving.
Then she stayed.
Not to prove anything.
Because she was tired of leaving rooms in her own house.
An officer stood near the foyer while Ethan carried empty garment bags upstairs.
He had lost weight.
Claire noticed immediately and hated herself for noticing.
He wore the same navy jacket he had worn the afternoon of the camera, though Claire knew he owned three nearly identical ones.
He stopped beside the repaired console table.
The camera had not been replaced.
The adhesive mark remained on the ceiling.
Ethan looked up at it.
Then at Claire.
“Can we talk?”
The officer glanced over.
Claire said, “No.”
Ethan nodded.
He went upstairs.
Twenty minutes later he came down carrying two boxes.
He had packed his watch case, shoes, cuff links, three framed photographs from his office, and the small ceramic bowl Claire made during a pottery class and hated.
She looked at it.
“You want that?”
Ethan followed her gaze.
“You made it.”
“It’s terrible.”
“I know.”
For a second they smiled.
Then both stopped.
Ethan looked toward the officer.
“I’m not allowed to say anything substantive to you.”
“That’s probably good.”
His jaw tightened.
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
“I did not fake your signature.”
The officer shifted his stance.
Ethan raised one hand.
“I’m not threatening her.”
Claire stared.
“Then who did?”
“I said I’m not discussing this.”
“You brought it up.”
His mouth closed.
There it was.
The old rhythm.
The urge to win.
Even now.
Ethan picked up the boxes.
“My lawyer will explain.”
Claire almost laughed.
“Your lawyer was there?”
He looked at her.
“No.”
“Then how would he know?”
Ethan’s face flushed.
The officer stepped closer.
“Time to go.”
Ethan walked toward the door.
At the threshold he stopped.
“Mom won’t speak to me.”
Claire said nothing.
“She changed her locks.”
Claire continued watching him.
“I didn’t take her money.”
“I know.”
His expression shifted.
“You believe me?”
“I believe the bank records.”
For a moment he looked relieved.
Then Claire said, “I also believe you were looking.”
The relief disappeared.
He went outside.
The officer followed.
Claire locked the door after them.
Her hands did not shake.
That surprised her.
In late November, the first significant break in the financial investigation came from something remarkably boring.
An authentication log.
The lender produced records showing that the disputed authorization had been completed through a browser on the Blake home network. A verification code had been sent to Claire’s old personal email address.
The address was still active.
Claire rarely used it.
Ethan knew the password.
So did Claire.
The code had been opened.
That still did not prove who entered it.
Then Melissa obtained device information showing the login had come from a laptop registered to Blake Residential Partners.
Claire sat in Melissa’s office staring at the page.
“His laptop?”
“Apparently.”
“That proves it.”
Melissa shook her head.
“It proves the device.”
Claire hated her.
Only briefly.
“Who else used it?”
“That’s what we need to establish.”
Ethan’s attorney responded that administrative staff sometimes used the laptop.
A former office manager said she had occasionally accessed it.
Another employee remembered Ethan taking the laptop home often.
No one remembered that particular morning.
The evidence narrowed the possibilities.
It did not produce the satisfying click Claire wanted.
Meanwhile, the company’s problems became visible.
Two projects stalled.
A subcontractor filed a payment dispute.
Several employees left.
Natalie blamed Claire.
Not directly.
Not at first.
She texted Margaret instead.
He’s losing everything.
Margaret showed Claire the message during their first coffee together after six weeks of barely speaking.
Claire had not forgiven her.
Margaret had stopped asking.
They met at a small café halfway between their homes because neither wanted the intimacy of a kitchen.
Margaret wore a green wool coat and pearl earrings.
She looked almost aggressively put together.
Claire suspected this was armor.
Margaret slid the phone across the table.
Claire read Natalie’s message.
“Why are you showing me?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s new.”
Margaret nodded.
“I’m experimenting with uncertainty.”
Claire looked at her.
Margaret smiled faintly.
Claire pushed the phone back.
“His company isn’t failing because I filed for divorce.”
May you like
“I know.”
“It might be failing because he took money to keep it alive.”
