Chapter 4 - Claire Holloway Tells Half the Truth
Claire agreed to meet at Saint Brigid’s Chapel because she said it was the only place Damon would not look for her.
That almost made me laugh.
Damon donated to churches, hospitals, schools, domestic violence galas, addiction centers, and children’s charities. There was no sacred place he had not learned to enter smiling.
Still, at eleven-thirty that night, Naomi, Evelyn, and I parked across from the small stone chapel on a quiet street near Lincoln Park.
Naomi insisted we record everything.
“Not secretly if we can avoid it,” she said. “Illinois consent laws are complicated. We do this clean.”
So when Claire slipped through the side gate wearing jeans, a black coat, and no makeup, Naomi stepped forward first and said, “This conversation is being documented. If you want legal counsel, get it now. If you speak, speak knowingly.”
Claire looked past her at me.
Her face crumpled.
“Hannah.”
I felt nothing at first.
That scared me.
I had expected rage, grief, maybe the old reflex to comfort her. Instead, I felt as if I were looking at a stranger wearing my memories.
Claire had sat beside me at my baby shower and placed both hands on my belly. She had whispered, “I love her already.”
That same woman had hidden in my closet while Damon prepared to erase me.
“Was any of it real?” I asked.
Claire flinched.
Naomi opened her phone and began recording on the table between us inside the chapel’s small parish meeting room.
Claire wrapped both hands around a paper cup of coffee she did not drink.
“I didn’t know about the guardianship petition,” she said.
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
Naomi remained still.
I said, “Start earlier.”
Claire nodded, crying silently.
“It began last winter. Damon called me after his father’s stroke benefit. He said you were distant. That pregnancy had been hard on you emotionally even before you conceived. He said he didn’t know how to reach you.”
“That’s interesting,” I said. “Last winter I wasn’t pregnant.”
Claire shut her eyes.
“I know.”
“Did you know then?”
“I knew he was unhappy.”
“No,” I said. “Did you know he was lying?”
She looked down.
That was answer enough.
The room seemed to shrink around us.
Claire said, “He made me feel like I understood him in a way nobody else did.”
I smiled faintly.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The oldest excuse in the world dressed up as intimacy.”
She accepted that like a slap.
Good.
“He said your father’s trust was suffocating him,” she continued. “That you used it to control him.”
“I didn’t even understand the trust.”
“I know that now.”
“Now?”
Claire’s tears came harder. “He told me after the baby shower that you were getting worse. That you accused nurses of talking about you. That you thought someone was following you. That you threatened to keep the baby from him.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“Did you witness any of that?”
“No.”
“But you repeated it?”
Claire swallowed. “Yes.”
“To whom?”
“My mother. Owen. A few friends. Damon said if people noticed, they could help you.”
I looked away.
There was the narrative Naomi warned about.
Not built in one night.
Seeded socially, gently, through sympathy.
Poor Damon. Pregnant Hannah is fragile. Poor Damon. He’s trying so hard. Poor Damon. He may need help protecting the baby.
Claire had not just betrayed my marriage.
She had helped build the walls of my cage.
“What recordings?” I asked.
Claire’s face changed.
“He has clips.”
“Of what?”
“You crying. Arguing. Once when you said you felt like the house was watching you.”
My stomach sank.
I had said that.
Two months earlier, after finding a nanny camera in the nursery bookshelf. Damon had laughed and said the security company must have installed it in the wrong place. I had cried because I was exhausted and embarrassed and tired of being told every concern was pregnancy anxiety.
“He recorded me?”
Claire nodded. “He has cameras. Not just security cameras. Audio too.”
Naomi’s eyes sharpened. “Where?”
“Bedroom. Kitchen. Nursery. His office. Maybe the sitting room.”
Evelyn cursed under her breath.
I pressed a hand to my belly.
The nursery.
He had watched me there.
Watched me fold tiny clothes, speak to my daughter, cry from back pain, pray over a crib I thought we had chosen together.
Claire whispered, “He edited things. I saw one video. You were crying on the nursery floor saying, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ But he cut out the part before it.”
“What part?”
“You were talking about assembling the crib.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Naomi said, “Where are the files kept?”
Claire shook her head. “I don’t know. Damon has a private server. He also keeps a black laptop in the safe at the house.”
“What safe?” I asked.
“The one behind the wine cabinet in his study.”
I stared at her.
I had lived in that house for five years.
I had never known there was a safe behind the wine cabinet.
Claire looked ashamed.
Not enough.
“Did you love him?” I asked.
Her answer came too slowly.
“I thought I did.”
I nodded.
“And Owen?”
She began sobbing.
“Owen is good.”
“Yes,” I said. “He is.”
Owen Holloway was quiet, kind, slightly awkward, and brilliant with numbers. He had proposed to Claire at a vineyard while Damon and I watched from a candlelit table nearby. I had cried that night too.
So had Damon.
I wondered now whether he had been laughing inside.
“Does Owen know?” I asked.
Claire wiped her face.
“Not everything.”
“Meaning?”
“He knows Damon kissed me once and I told him it was a mistake.”
I almost admired the softness of the lie.
Naomi interrupted. “Claire, did Damon instruct you to be at the Cross residence today?”
Claire hesitated.
“No.”
Evelyn leaned forward. “Think carefully.”
Claire’s fingers tightened around the cup.
“He said Hannah would be gone for two hours.”
“That’s not the question,” Naomi said.
Claire looked at me.
“He wanted you to find something.”
My pulse changed.
“What?”
“My earring. A lipstick. Something small. He said you had started accusing him without proof, and if you found something innocent, he could show how fast you spiraled.”
I stared at her.
“But then I came home early.”
Claire nodded.
“And you were in my bed.”
She covered her face.
“I’m sorry.”
The words landed uselessly between us.
Sorry was what people said when they bumped into you in a grocery aisle.
There was no word for what Claire had done.
Naomi stopped the recording and immediately saved copies to two devices.
“We need you to sign a sworn statement,” she said.
Claire looked terrified. “Damon will destroy me.”
Evelyn’s voice was ice. “He already has. You’re just the last to know.”
Claire turned to me.
“Hannah, please. I can help you.”
“You can help me by telling the whole truth.”
“I am.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You’re telling the part that makes you useful without making you responsible.”
Claire went pale.
Naomi almost smiled.
Then Claire’s phone rang.
Damon’s name lit the screen.
All of us stared at it.
“Answer,” Naomi said.
Claire shook her head violently. “No.”
“Answer,” I said.
She looked at me.
I did not blink.
Claire answered on speaker.
Damon’s voice filled the chapel room.
“Where are you?”
Claire’s hands trembled.
“I needed air.”
“You needed to stay where I told you.”
Naomi’s eyes flicked to mine.
Damon continued, calm and poisonous.
“Hannah is unstable. You saw what happened. If she contacts you, do not engage.”
Claire looked at me with horror.
Damon lowered his voice.
“The petition goes before Judge Carver at eight-thirty. Pike is ready. Bell will confirm tonight’s incident. By noon tomorrow, Hannah will be resting somewhere safe, and all of this will be over.”
My baby kicked hard.
Damon said, “And Claire?”
“Yes?” she whispered.
“Do not forget what happens to Owen if you disappoint me.”
The call ended.
Claire lowered the phone.
The chapel seemed deadly quiet.
Naomi saved the recording.
May you like
Then she looked at me.
“We have until eight-thirty in the morning.”
