Chapter 2 - The Woman in Green
The door opened before I could push it.
Daniel stood behind it.
I stared at him.
“How did you get here before us?”
“Claire drove.”
Margaret looked past him.
“Where is she?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
I pushed through.
The apartment was not what I expected.
No champagne.
No lingerie.
No romantic photographs.
It looked barely lived in.
A gray sofa.
A dining table.
Books.
A piano.
And dozens of cardboard boxes.
“What is this place?”
Daniel shut the door.
“My apartment.”
“You have an apartment.”
“Yes.”
“While we have a house together.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Seven years.”
The number struck me.
Seven.
Again.
I walked toward the nearest box.
Daniel stepped forward.
“Emily.”
I lifted the lid.
Children’s drawings.
Hundreds of them.
Crayon houses.
Stick figures.
Animals.
Christmas trees.
My anger suddenly collided with confusion.
“What is this?”
Daniel said nothing.
Margaret sat down slowly.
I pulled out one drawing.
Three figures stood beneath a yellow sun.
A woman.
A little boy.
A tall man.
Across the top, in childish handwriting:
ME + MOM + D.
My hands went cold.
“Daniel.”
He looked at the floor.
“Do you have a child?”
“No.”
“Then who drew this?”
Claire entered from the hallway.
Her face was wet with tears.
“My son.”
I turned.
“What?”
“His name is Noah.”
I looked at Daniel.
Claire continued.
“He’s nine.”
Nine.
Daniel and I had been married six years.
My knees weakened.
“Is Daniel his father?”
“No.”
The answer came from Daniel.
Claire shook her head.
“No. He isn’t.”
“Then why does your son draw him?”
Claire looked at Margaret.
Margaret whispered, “Tell her everything.”
Claire sat down.
“When Daniel and I were twenty-three, we were engaged.”
I stared at him.
“You told me you’d never been engaged.”
“I lied.”
At least he finally used the word.
Claire continued.
“Three weeks before our wedding, my younger sister died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She left a baby.”
“Noah.”
Claire nodded.
“I became his guardian.”
Daniel leaned against the wall.
“I wanted to help.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“You wanted to save everyone.”
“What happened?”
Claire looked at me.
“Daniel’s father happened.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
I knew Daniel’s father, Richard Whitmore, only through photographs.
He had died two years before I met Daniel.
A powerful Chicago developer.
A man Margaret rarely discussed.
“Richard believed Claire’s family was beneath ours,” Margaret said. “When Noah arrived, he gave Daniel a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Leave Claire or lose everything.”
I frowned.
“Everything?”
“The company. His inheritance. His trust.”
I looked at Daniel.
“You chose the money?”
His face tightened.
“No.”
Claire answered.
“He chose me.”
That surprised me.
“Then why didn’t you marry?”
“Because I left him.”
Daniel looked at her.
The pain on his face was unmistakable.
Claire continued.
“Richard came to me privately. He told me Daniel would lose his future if I stayed. He offered money. I refused.”
“So?”
“So he found another way.”
Margaret stood.
“Richard threatened Noah’s custody.”
I stared at her.
“He had connections. Lawyers. Judges. People who owed him favors.”
Claire nodded.
“I was twenty-three. Terrified. I believed him.”
“So you disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Milwaukee.”
“And Daniel?”
“He searched for me.”
Daniel finally spoke.
“For eleven months.”
Something shifted inside me.
It did not excuse anything.
But the shape of the betrayal changed.
“How does apartment 417 fit into this?”
Daniel walked toward the piano.
“My father owned this unit.”
“He used it for meetings he didn’t want anyone to know about,” Margaret said.
“After he died,” Daniel continued, “I found documents here.”
“What documents?”
“Records of what he did to Claire.”
I stared at the boxes.
“And you kept all this secret from me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel’s eyes met mine.
“Because by then I had you.”
That answer hurt in a completely different way.
He came closer.
“I loved you, Emily. I still love you. And every time I tried to tell you, I imagined watching you wonder whether you had been my second choice.”
“Was I?”
“No.”
Claire looked away.
I hated that she was in the room for this.
I hated that Margaret knew.
I hated that every person here possessed pieces of my husband that I had never been allowed to see.
“Why were you holding her hand today?”
Claire answered.
“Noah disappeared.”
I froze.
“What?”
“This morning.”
Daniel nodded.
“He left school after receiving a message.”
“What message?”
Claire handed me her phone.
A screenshot.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
YOUR MOTHER LIED ABOUT WHO YOU ARE. ASK DANIEL WHITMORE ABOUT YOUR FATHER.
I looked up.
“Who sent this?”
“We don’t know.”
“Have you called police?”
“Yes,” Claire said. “They’re looking for him.”
“Then why were you shopping?”
“We weren’t,” Daniel said. “Claire believed Noah came to Chicago. His phone pinged near the mall.”
Everything I thought I had seen twenty minutes earlier rearranged itself.
Not vanished.
Daniel had still lied.
For years.
But perhaps I had witnessed panic rather than romance.
“Why was she wearing that dress?”
Claire almost smiled despite herself.
“I work at an event venue. I left in the middle of a holiday luncheon.”
That explained the emerald satin.
I sat down.
My anger felt heavier now because it had nowhere simple to go.
I wanted a villain.
Instead I had a dead father-in-law, a terrified woman, a missing child, a husband who had built our marriage around a locked room, and a mother-in-law who had helped him.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone looked at it.
Daniel said, “Don’t answer.”
I answered.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Then breathing.
“Who is this?”
A boy whispered.
“Emily?”
I stood.
“How do you know my name?”
Daniel came toward me.
The boy spoke quickly.
“My name is Noah.”
Claire covered her mouth.
“Noah?” I said. “Where are you?”
“I found your picture.”
“My picture where?”
“In the box.”
“What box?”
A sound interrupted him.
A door.
Then footsteps.
Noah’s breathing changed.
“I have to go.”
“Noah, wait.”
“I know who Daniel is.”
The line crackled.
“What do you mean?”
“He lied to all of you.”
Then someone spoke behind Noah.
A man.
Noah gasped.
The call ended.
Daniel grabbed his coat.
Claire was already moving.
I stared at the silent phone.
A second later, a photograph arrived.
May you like
It showed Noah standing beside a storage locker.
On the metal door was one number.
