Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Helped Destroy My Marriage
“Trace it.”
Michael already had his laptop open.
“I’m trying.”
“Try faster.”
“Burner phone. Signal bounced.”
I paced across the nursery while Michael worked.
Rebecca remained on speaker.
“Tell me everything Claire said before I got on the phone.”
“She sounded like she was in a car.”
“Driving?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Was anyone with her?”
“I heard someone yelling.”
“What exactly?”
“I couldn’t understand.”
I stopped.
“Think.”
“I am thinking!”
Rebecca’s voice cracked.
“You don’t get to talk to me like one of your employees, Daniel. My sister disappeared because she was terrified and heartbroken, and now somebody may have found her.”
She was right.
That didn’t make it easier to hear.
I lowered my voice.
“Did she say a city?”
“No.”
“Road?”
“No.”
“Anything about what she could see?”
Rebecca went silent.
Then: “Water.”
“What?”
“She said she could see water.”
Chicago had more than enough of that.
Michael shook his head.
“Not useful.”
Rebecca heard him.
“She also said there was an old church.”
Michael looked up.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know. She said something like, ‘I should’ve listened when you told me not to stay near Saint Anne’s.’”
Michael immediately started typing.
“There are twelve Saint Anne churches within two hundred miles.”
“Check all of them.”
“I am.”
My phone vibrated.
Elliot Graves.
The timing felt wrong.
I answered.
“Daniel.”
His voice was casual.
Too casual.
“You disappeared from dinner.”
“I had something to handle.”
“You all right?”
“Fine.”
“Claire?”
My eyes lifted toward Michael.
“Why are you asking about Claire?”
A pause.
Barely noticeable.
“Because she’s your wife.”
“She left.”
“I heard.”
“How?”
Another pause.
Then Elliot laughed quietly.
“Half the staff knows, Daniel.”
“No one knew until tonight.”
Michael stopped typing.
Silence came through the phone.
Elliot recovered quickly.
“I assumed.”
“You assumed my seven-months-pregnant wife packed a suitcase and disappeared?”
“I know you two have been having problems.”
“Do you?”
“Everyone knows you’ve been distracted.”
I stared at the photograph of Elliot outside Claire’s clinic.
“What do you want?”
“Just checking on you.”
“I appreciate it.”
I hung up.
Michael looked at me.
“He knows.”
“Yes.”
“So what now?”
“Now we make him believe I don’t.”
I grabbed my jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“To see Lena.”
Michael stood.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“If your brother is alive—”
“This isn’t about Thomas.”
“It’s all about Thomas.”
I looked at him.
“This part is about me.”
Lena Marlowe lived in a glass tower overlooking Lake Michigan.
I had paid the rent.
That detail made me hate myself more than anything.
Not because of the money.
Because of the planning.
People liked to pretend affairs happened accidentally.
A drink.
A moment.
Loneliness.
Weakness.
Mine required a lease.
That meant at some point I had made a series of decisions.
Not one mistake.
Many.
I entered the building using the private key Lena had given me.
The doorman looked surprised.
“Mr. Carter.”
“Is she upstairs?”
“I believe so.”
The elevator ride took twenty-three seconds.
I counted every one.
Lena opened the door wearing silk pajamas.
Her smile appeared automatically.
Then disappeared when she saw my face.
“Daniel?”
“Who is Thomas Carter?”
For one second, she looked genuinely confused.
Then afraid.
That was enough.
I stepped inside.
“You know him.”
“I don’t.”
“Lena.”
“You need to leave.”
“You met Elliot Graves.”
She went pale.
“I meet lots of people.”
“Outside my wife’s doctor’s office?”
Her eyes flickered.
I had my answer.
I shut the door behind me.
“Did you know Claire was pregnant when you approached me?”
Her jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
The word landed like a slap.
“Did Elliot send you?”
She crossed her arms.
“You’re acting like I forced you into bed.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
“Because I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“You bought me jewelry.”
“I know.”
“You called me.”
“I know.”
“You came here because you wanted to.”
Every sentence stripped away an excuse I didn’t deserve.
“I know.”
Lena looked almost disappointed that I wasn’t going to blame her.
I moved closer.
“But you approached me for a reason.”
She looked toward the windows.
“Tell me.”
“You should go home to your wife.”
“She’s gone.”
Lena turned.
“What?”
“She left.”
Something like guilt crossed her face.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
My pulse slowed.
“What was supposed to happen?”
She said nothing.
I lowered my voice.
“Lena.”
“Elliot hired me.”
I felt a coldness settle inside me.
“For what?”
“To get close to you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“He said you were becoming unpredictable.”
I almost laughed.
“Elliot said that?”
“He said Claire was changing you.”
“In what way?”
“You were moving assets. Reorganizing companies. Cutting people out.”
Because I had been preparing for fatherhood.
I had started converting cash businesses into legitimate entities.
Closed two warehouses I knew were being used by men I no longer wanted around my family.
Changed my will.
Created the trust.
I hadn’t announced why.
Apparently Elliot understood anyway.
“What did he want from you?”
“Access.”
“To what?”
“Your phone. Your office. Your keys.”
Rage rose inside me.
“Did you take anything?”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“Wrong answer.”
“Fine. Once.”
“What?”
“Your hotel keycard.”
“Why?”
“To copy the data.”
“You copied a hotel key?”
“It wasn’t the room key they wanted.”
My mind snapped backward.
The Four Seasons.
Three weeks earlier.
I had carried a black encrypted access card used for the executive floor at Carter Development.
I had left my jacket over a chair while I showered.
When I returned, Lena had been sitting near it.
“What did they access?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who is they?”
“I swear I don’t know.”
I moved closer.
“Thomas Carter.”
Her breathing changed.
So did mine.
“You do know him.”
“I never met him.”
“Then how do you know the name?”
“Elliot said it once.”
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
“What did he say?”
Lena closed her eyes.
“He said Thomas wanted results.”
I felt fourteen years collapse.
“Results from what?”
“From you.”
“Meaning?”
“He wanted your marriage damaged.”
The room went completely silent.
“Why?”
“So Claire would leave.”
My hand tightened at my side.
“Why does Thomas care whether my wife leaves me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know more.”
Lena looked afraid.
Not of me.
Of someone else.
“He said Claire was the problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“She was looking where she shouldn’t.”
The nursery wall flashed through my mind.
Photographs.
Bank statements.
Medical records.
“She knew about the money.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“And Thomas wanted her gone before she could tell me.”
Lena swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Did he order anyone to hurt her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Elliot?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I really don’t!”
She stepped backward.
“I thought this was corporate warfare. I thought they wanted a divorce scandal. They told me Claire would take the baby, you’d spiral, the board would panic, and Elliot would stabilize the company.”
That sounded like Elliot.
Cold.
Practical.
But not enough.
“Why would my brother care about my board?”
Lena said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“Why?”
She looked at me.
“Because he says Carter Holdings belongs to him.”
My breath stopped.
“He says you stole it.”
“I built it.”
“He says you built it with his money.”
Thomas and I had started together.
He was older.
Smarter with numbers.
I was better with people who needed persuading.
Before the fire, we fought constantly.
Afterward, everything became mine.
Because Thomas was dead.
“He also says you killed him.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“That’s what Elliot told me.”
The absurdity almost made me smile.
“Thomas thinks I tried to kill him in the warehouse fire?”
“Apparently.”
I turned toward the lake.
Memories returned.
Smoke.
Sirens.
Flames ripping through the roof.
Me screaming Thomas’s name while Michael—not yet my employee then—dragged me backward.
Three bodies recovered.
One assumed to be Thomas.
My mother collapsing at the funeral.
“Why stay dead fourteen years?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why now?”
Lena’s eyes dropped.
“The baby.”
I turned.
“What about my daughter?”
She swallowed.
“Thomas believes she’ll make it impossible to take the company from you.”
I knew that.
The trust.
“Why?”
“Because of your father.”
That stopped me.
“My father has been dead twenty-two years.”
Lena shook her head.
“I don’t mean what he can do now.”
“Then what?”
“I mean what he left behind.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Lena froze.
I looked toward it.
“Expecting someone?”
“No.”
Another knock.
Three slow taps.
Lena’s face drained of color.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“You need to go.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
She grabbed my wrist.
For the first time since I arrived, she looked genuinely terrified.
“Daniel, please.”
The knock came again.
Then a man’s voice.
“Lena.”
She released me.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it across conference rooms for eighteen years.
Elliot Graves.
Lena whispered, “Hide.”
I almost laughed.
Nobody had told me to hide in decades.
Then Elliot spoke again.
“He knows about Claire.”
Lena’s eyes widened.
Another man answered from the hallway.
A voice I hadn’t heard since I was twenty-eight years old.
“Then we’re out of time.”
Thomas.
My dead brother was standing ten feet away.
I moved toward the door.
Lena blocked me.
“No.”
I looked down at her.
“He has my wife.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He has my daughter.”
“You don’t know that either.”
“I’m about to.”
Before she could stop me, I opened the door.
Elliot Graves stared at me.
Behind him stood a gray-haired man with a scar running from his temple to his jaw.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
My brother.
Thomas smiled.
“Hello, Danny.”
Nobody had called me that since our mother died.
For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
Thomas studied me.
Then his smile faded.
“You always were terrible at knowing when you’d already lost.”
I stepped into the hallway.
“Where is Claire?”
Thomas tilted his head.
“Your wife?”
“If you touched her—”
“You’re worried about her now?”
That landed exactly where he intended.
Thomas looked past me toward Lena.
“See? I told you. Men like my brother only understand value after something becomes unavailable.”
I grabbed his coat.
Elliot moved.
Thomas raised one hand.
Elliot stopped.
Thomas looked at my fist.
“Go ahead.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t have Claire.”
“Liar.”
“I was looking for her.”
“Why?”
“Because she took something that belongs to me.”
“What?”
Thomas smiled.
“You really don’t know.”
My hand tightened.
“Tell me.”
“Ask your wife why she emptied the nursery before she left.”
“It wasn’t empty.”
“Not the furniture.”
His smile vanished.
“The safe.”
I remembered the unfinished wall beside the crib.
A rectangular patch where paint looked slightly newer.
I had ignored it.
“What was inside?”
Thomas leaned close.
“Proof that the empire you’ve spent your whole life defending…”
He lowered his voice.
“…was never yours.”
Then Elliot’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression immediately changed.
“What happened?”
Thomas turned.
Elliot looked at him.
“They found the car.”
My blood froze.
“What car?”
Neither answered.
I grabbed Elliot.
“What car?”
His eyes met mine.
“Claire’s.”
“Where?”
“Near Kenosha.”
“Was she inside?”
Silence.
“Was she inside?”
Elliot swallowed.
“No.”
Relief lasted half a second.
May you like
Then he added:
“But there was blood.”
