Chapter 5 - What Daniel Hid in Milwaukee
I closed the folder.
Margaret reached for my arm.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
Footsteps crossed the foyer.
Slow.
Deliberate.
I grabbed the heavy brass letter opener from Daniel’s desk.
The study door moved.
“Emily?”
I nearly collapsed.
Daniel entered.
“What are you doing here?”
“Police found Noah.”
Claire appeared behind him.
Her face was streaked with tears.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s alive.”
Relief swept through the room.
“Where is he?”
“Hospital.”
“Stephen?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Gone.”
Claire explained that officers had found Noah alone inside the warehouse.
No restraints.
No injuries.
Just frightened.
Stephen had apparently left minutes before police arrived.
“He gave Noah something,” Daniel said.
“What?”
“A message.”
Daniel looked at me.
“For you.”
My pulse quickened.
“What message?”
“He said, ‘Ask Emily what her father lost.’”
I looked at the folder.
Daniel noticed.
“What is that?”
I handed him the agreement.
He read.
His expression changed.
“Carter.”
“My father.”
Margaret sat.
“I should have realized.”
“Realized what?”
She looked at me.
“Your father wasn’t just an accountant, was he?”
“No. Before I was born, he worked in commercial development.”
Daniel looked at the document.
“With my father.”
Apparently.
My father had died when I was nineteen.
He had rarely spoken about his early career.
I remembered only one sentence.
Never trust a man who needs everyone else to know how powerful he is.
I had assumed it was general advice.
Now I wondered whether he had been describing Richard.
Daniel turned pages.
“This agreement gave your father twenty percent ownership in the original company.”
“What happened to it?”
Margaret answered.
“Richard took it.”
I stared.
“How?”
“Probably the same way he took Stephen’s house.”
Forgery.
Threats.
Lawyers.
Power.
I suddenly felt nauseated.
Daniel sat beside me.
“I didn’t know.”
I looked at him.
“How can I believe that?”
He absorbed the question.
“You can’t.”
It was the right answer.
Not comforting.
But right.
Claire left for the hospital.
Daniel wanted to go too.
Before he did, I asked, “What happened in Milwaukee?”
He froze.
Margaret looked at him.
“Emily—”
“No. I want Daniel to answer.”
He sat again.
“Three years ago, I found Claire.”
My heart sank.
“You told me you were at a conference.”
“I was.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I saw her afterward.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No.”
“Did you want to?”
Daniel took too long.
I stood.
“That’s enough.”
“No, Emily.”
“You hesitated.”
“Because I’m trying not to lie anymore.”
I turned back.
He looked miserable.
“When I saw Claire again, every unfinished thing from my twenties came back. Not because I wanted to leave you. Because I realized how much of my life had been controlled by my father.”
“Did you kiss her?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“I told her part of me probably always would.”
The words struck harder than I expected.
Margaret whispered, “Daniel.”
I held up my hand.
“Don’t.”
He looked at me.
“I came home that night and almost told you everything.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Instead you got into bed beside me.”
“Yes.”
“Then spent three more years letting me believe I knew my own marriage.”
He had no defense.
I went upstairs.
Daniel followed only as far as the landing.
“Emily.”
I turned.
“I need you to leave.”
“This is my house too.”
“Apparently neither of us knows whose house it is.”
He flinched.
“Please.”
He went downstairs.
A few minutes later, the front door closed.
I sat on our bed.
Our wedding photograph stood on the dresser.
I looked at the woman I had been that day.
She believed honesty was the simplest promise in marriage.
She had no idea she was marrying into a family where secrets were inherited like property.
My phone rang.
Claire.
“Noah wants to speak to you.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
A boy’s voice came on.
“Hi.”
“Hi, Noah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For making everyone scared.”
“You didn’t.”
“Stephen said you would understand.”
“Understand what?”
“He showed me something.”
“What?”
“A video.”
My heart accelerated.
“Of whom?”
“Your dad.”
I stood.
“My father?”
“He said it was made before you were born.”
“Where is it?”
“Stephen gave me a flash drive.”
“Do the police have it?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
Noah lowered his voice.
“He told me not to give it to them.”
“Why?”
“Because he said somebody in the Whitmore family would try to destroy it.”
My bedroom door creaked behind me.
I turned.
May you like
Margaret stood there.
And she had heard every word.
