Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO USED MY NAME
For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
Rebecca repeated my name.
“Claire?”
“I’m here.”
“Were you with me yesterday?”
“No.”
“Did you call my office?”
“No.”
“I assumed not.”
Across the room, Evan looked as though somebody had punched him.
“What happened?” he asked.
I put Rebecca on speaker.
“My paralegal received the call at 3:16 yesterday afternoon,” Rebecca said. “A woman identified herself as Claire Dalton and said she had changed her mind about the prenuptial agreement.”
Rachel had returned and now stood in the doorway.
“What did she ask for?” I said.
“The caller wanted to know whether destroying all signed copies would invalidate it.”
Lydia.
Every instinct I had screamed her name.
“What did your office tell her?”
“Nothing useful. My paralegal asked security questions. The caller answered your birth month correctly but missed the name of your first employer. Then she hung up.”
Rachel whispered, “Jesus.”
Rebecca continued.
“I was going to call you this morning, but I assumed it could wait until after the wedding.”
“Apparently it couldn’t.”
“Is your copy missing?”
“Yes.”
“The original isn’t.”
Relief hit me.
“You have it?”
“In my safe.”
Evan sat down heavily.
I looked at him.
“Did your mother know Rebecca had the original?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
Every answer now came with an invisible question mark.
Rebecca spoke again.
“There is another issue.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“Yesterday evening I received an automated notification that someone attempted to access the Dalton Family Trust portal.”
I felt sick.
“From where?”
“Unknown device. Failed login.”
I stared at the opened suitcase.
The folders.
The papers someone had searched.
“They weren’t just looking for the prenup.”
“No,” Rebecca said. “It appears somebody was looking for financial information.”
Evan stood.
“Claire, I swear I had nothing to do with that.”
“You signed a four-million-dollar guarantee three days ago.”
“I know how it looks.”
“How does it look, Evan?”
“Terrible.”
“At least we agree.”
He stepped toward me.
“I signed because my mother told me Mercer Interiors would collapse if I didn’t.”
Mercer Interiors was Lydia’s pride.
She had taken over the luxury design company after Evan’s father died.
For years, she had acted as though it printed money.
Magazine covers.
Celebrity clients.
A showroom in Manhattan.
A vacation house in Nantucket.
Cars changed every two years.
I suddenly wondered how much of it had been borrowed.
“How long has she been in trouble?”
“About eighteen months.”
“And you never told me?”
“She made me promise.”
I laughed once.
“Your mother’s promises outrank your wife?”
“You weren’t my wife then.”
The second he said it, regret hit his face.
But it was too late.
Rachel stared at him.
I felt something inside me harden.
“Rebecca,” I said, “what do I need to do?”
“First, leave that hotel room.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know who entered or what they touched. Second, freeze nonessential financial access until we understand the trust-login attempt. Third, I want Evan’s loan documents.”
He nodded.
“I’ll send them.”
“Today.”
“Yes.”
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Do not go on your honeymoon.”
Evan’s face fell.
Our flight to Italy left that evening.
Two weeks.
Florence, Lake Como, Rome.
A trip we had planned for a year.
Now it seemed ridiculous.
“I won’t.”
We ended the call.
Rachel immediately began packing my things.
Evan watched her.
“Where is she going?”
“My apartment,” Rachel said.
“I asked Claire.”
“And Claire is trying not to scream.”
“Rachel.”
I touched her arm.
“It’s okay.”
I turned toward Evan.
“I’m going somewhere safe until I understand what happened.”
“Our home is safe.”
“Your mother has a key.”
“I’ll change the locks.”
“She knows our security code.”
“I’ll change that too.”
I shook my head.
“This isn’t about locks.”
His eyes reddened.
“We got married yesterday.”
“I remember.”
“I love you.”
The words nearly broke me.
I wished he hadn’t said them.
Because I loved him too.
And loving someone doesn’t magically make them trustworthy.
Sometimes it simply makes betrayal more expensive.
“Then tell me everything.”
“I am.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You’re answering questions. That’s not the same thing.”
He stared at me.
“What else?”
“Why did your mother say I don’t know who my father really was?”
His expression shifted.
Barely.
But enough.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“Because she says crazy things when she’s angry.”
“She didn’t look crazy.”
“Claire—”
“What did she mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel stopped packing.
Silence filled the room.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A text.
Before you accuse the wrong person, check Suite 814. Ask for Tara Mercer.
Tara was Evan’s younger sister.
My new sister-in-law.
She had disappeared from the reception shortly after dinner, supposedly because of a migraine.
I showed Rachel.
Evan saw the message.
His face drained.
“Why would Tara be in 814?”
“You tell me.”
“She had a room on the fifth floor.”
“Apparently not.”
We walked downstairs together.
Not because I trusted Evan.
Because I wanted him beside me when the next lie appeared.
Suite 814 was in the opposite wing.
Rachel knocked.
Nothing.
Again.
“Tara?”
No answer.
Evan tried the handle.
Locked.
He called his sister.
We heard a phone ringing inside.
His expression changed.
“Tara!”
He pounded the door.
“Tara, open up!”
Nothing.
Rachel called security.
Mr. Patel arrived minutes later.
After confirming the booking information, he used a master key.
The room looked abandoned.
Bed untouched.
Curtains open.
Bathroom empty.
But on the desk stood two champagne glasses.
A laptop.
And my missing blue folder.
I walked toward it slowly.
My prenup sat inside.
Or what looked like it.
I opened to the signature page.
My signature.
Evan’s signature.
Rebecca’s witness stamp.
Everything appeared normal.
Until I read page eleven.
A paragraph had been inserted.
One that had never existed.
In the event of marital dissolution within twelve months of marriage, spouse Evan Mercer shall be entitled to financial settlement equal to thirty percent of Claire Dalton’s distributable trust interest…
My hands began to shake.
“This is fake.”
Evan grabbed the document.
“What the hell?”
“Don’t touch it,” Rachel snapped.
He dropped it onto the desk.
Mr. Patel immediately called police.
Then I noticed the laptop screen.
It wasn’t asleep.
An email window was open.
The sender was Tara.
The recipient was an address I didn’t recognize.
The subject line read:
FINAL VERSION — CLAIRE SIGNATURE COMPLETE
There were attachments.
PDFs.
Copies of my driver’s license.
My tax forms.
My trust summary.
And a photograph of my signature sheet.
Someone had built a file on me.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Evan whispered.
“It makes perfect sense,” Rachel said. “Your family is trying to rob her.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Tara wouldn’t do this.”
“Your mother would.”
“Not Tara.”
I stared at the email.
The timestamp was 1:46 a.m.
While I had been downstairs on a sofa.
While Evan had been unconscious.
While Lydia had supposedly been sleeping beside him.
I clicked the sent folder.
Mr. Patel said, “Ma’am, please don’t manipulate anything.”
I stopped.
But I had already seen enough.
Dozens of messages.
One subject line stood out.
DALTON PROJECT
I clicked before anyone could stop me.
The first message had been sent four months earlier.
Four months before my wedding.
It contained only two sentences.
He’s emotionally attached now. That makes him unreliable.
Move forward before he tells Claire the truth.
The sender was Lydia.
The recipient was Tara.
I looked at Evan.
His face had gone white.
“What truth?”
He whispered, “I don’t know.”
Then a voice came from the doorway.
“I do.”
We turned.
Tara stood there.
Still wearing yesterday’s dress beneath a long coat.
Mascara streaked her cheeks.
She looked terrified.
And in her hand was an envelope.
She stared at her brother.
“I’m sorry.”
Then she looked at me.
“My mother didn’t plan for you to find that room.”
“What did she plan?”
Tara began crying.
“To make you think Evan betrayed you.”
I stared at her.
“Didn’t he?”
Her answer came softly.
“Yes.”
May you like
Then she looked at her brother.
“But not in the way Claire thinks.”
