Chapter 4 - Six Tuesdays
We ran upstairs.
Damon reached the nursery first.
The door stood open.
Claire was beside the crib, staring at the wall.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Then I saw what frightened her.
Someone had written a date across the nursery mirror.
JULY 9.
Damon stopped.
“Who did this?”
Claire turned toward him.
“You know.”
“No.”
“You always know.”
Owen moved between them.
“What happened July ninth?”
Claire looked at me.
“I met Damon that day.”
My stomach sank.
“Years ago?”
“Eight years ago.”
That was before Damon and I were married.
Before Claire and I became close.
“You told me you met him at our wedding.”
“I lied.”
She started crying.
“I knew Damon first.”
Owen's face twisted.
“So this has been happening for eight years?”
“No.”
Claire shook her head.
“We weren't lovers then.”
Damon snapped, “Stop talking.”
That told me everything I needed to know.
I faced Claire.
“Keep talking.”
She did.
Eight years earlier, Claire had worked as an assistant for a financial firm.
Damon had been one of its junior advisers.
Margaret Hale had been a client.
Richard Mercer had been another.
Claire discovered transfers between shell companies.
Millions disappeared.
Then Richard's car went over the guardrail.
Three days later, Margaret disappeared.
Damon told everyone she had died overseas.
“And you stayed quiet?” Owen demanded.
“I was twenty-two and terrified.”
“Then why sleep with him now?”
Claire flinched.
Damon stepped toward her.
“Enough.”
I blocked him.
“Answer me.”
Claire wiped her face.
“Because he contacted me four months ago. He said he had proof that Owen's father was alive.”
Owen stared.
“He offered to show me.”
“In exchange for what?”
Claire looked ashamed.
“Access.”
“To Owen?”
“To both of you.”
The six Tuesdays had not begun as an affair.
Claire had entered my house to search Damon's office.
Then Damon caught her.
“He threatened to tell Owen I'd known about Richard.”
Owen's expression hardened.
“So you slept with him.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
There was no excuse in her voice.
No attempt to make herself innocent.
“I betrayed both of you.”
I wanted to hate her cleanly.
It would have been easier.
But nothing was clean anymore.
“What was Damon searching for?”
Claire pointed toward my belly.
“The trust.”
Damon laughed.
“She doesn't know what she's talking about.”
I looked at him.
“Then explain why Claire is listed as trustee of our daughter's inheritance.”
His smile vanished.
Claire turned sharply.
“What?”
I showed her.
She stared at the document.
“I never signed this.”
Damon reached for my phone.
I pulled it away.
“Don't.”
His expression changed.
The charming husband disappeared.
“Emily, you are pregnant and emotional.”
Owen stepped forward.
“Finish that sentence.”
Damon ignored him.
“Your grandmother's estate is complicated.”
“My daughter isn't even born.”
“Exactly. I was protecting her.”
“By making your mistress her trustee?”
Claire whispered, “He forged it.”
Damon glared at her.
“You should leave.”
“No,” I said. “You should.”
“This is my house.”
“My grandmother bought it.”
Silence.
Damon looked at me differently.
Perhaps for the first time, he understood that the frightened pregnant wife he expected to manipulate had been watching him too.
He grabbed his jacket.
Before leaving, he turned to Claire.
“You have no idea what you've done.”
Then he walked out.
Owen remained beside the nursery window.
Claire sat on the floor.
I stared at the six dates on my phone.
“What happened during those Tuesdays?”
Claire answered quietly.
“I copied files from Damon's office.”
“Where are they?”
“I hid them.”
“Where?”
She looked toward the hallway.
“In the one place Damon would never search.”
She walked to our bedroom.
Stopped beside the closet.
The same closet where I'd found her.
Claire knelt and removed a loose floorboard.
Underneath was a flash drive.
Owen inserted it into my laptop.
Folders appeared.
Accounts.
Trusts.
Audio recordings.
Photographs.
Then one video file.
JULY_09_FINAL.
Claire whispered, “I've never opened that.”
I clicked it.
The screen showed a hospital room.
A younger Damon stood beside a bed.
Margaret was crying.
Richard Mercer stood behind her.
Then the camera shifted.
There was a newborn baby in Margaret's arms.
Owen leaned toward the screen.
“What baby?”
Damon's younger voice came through the speakers.
“Once Emily meets me, none of this can ever reach her.”
My blood froze.
Eight years ago.
Before Damon supposedly knew me.
Yet he had said my name.
May you like
Then someone in the video stepped into view.
My grandmother.
