Chapter 4 - What Eleanor Already Knew
Rebecca Cross stood in the foyer holding the stolen laptop.
She was fifty-eight, elegant, exhausted, and unmistakably related to Samantha.
Richard stared at her.
Eleanor did not.
That told me everything.
“You knew she was alive,” I said.
Eleanor's eyes remained on Rebecca.
“Yes.”
Richard turned toward his wife.
“What?”
Rebecca placed the laptop on the table.
“I didn't come here to destroy your family.”
I almost laughed.
Apparently everyone who arrived with a secret liked saying what they hadn't come to do.
“Why did you take that?” Richard demanded.
“I didn't.”
“Then how do you have it?”
“Jonathan gave it to me.”
The room went silent.
Rebecca looked at me.
“He thought there was something on it he needed destroyed.”
“Was there?”
“Yes.”
Jonathan had used the laptop six years earlier.
Not for an investment.
For a private DNA testing service.
The test wasn't his.
It was Oliver's.
My knees nearly weakened.
“Jonathan is Oliver's father?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
“Then whose DNA was he testing?”
Rebecca looked at Richard.
“Yours.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Richard looked genuinely confused.
Rebecca explained.
Twenty-nine years earlier, before she married Samantha's father, she had briefly dated Richard.
Eleanor knew.
Richard had told her before their wedding.
What nobody knew was that Rebecca became pregnant soon afterward.
Samantha was born.
Richard stared at Rebecca.
“You told me she wasn't mine.”
“I believed she wasn't.”
“Believed?”
“Until Samantha became ill as a teenager and blood typing raised questions.”
Richard sat down.
Eleanor's face was pale.
Rebecca continued.
Years later, Jonathan learned the story.
He secretly obtained Richard's DNA.
The test showed Richard was not Samantha's biological father.
I exhaled.
Then why all the secrecy?
Rebecca answered before I asked.
“Because Jonathan lied about the result.”
He told Samantha that Richard was her father.
He convinced her there was an inheritance issue.
Then he used that lie to borrow money from Richard under the excuse of a failed investment.
Forty thousand dollars.
“What did he do with it?”
Rebecca looked ashamed.
“He gave part of it to Samantha.”
“Why?”
“She had debts.”
Six years ago.
Jonathan and Samantha had been financially entangled long before their supposed September reunion.
Samantha's voice came through my phone.
“Mom?”
Rebecca froze.
I had forgotten the call was still connected.
“Mom, what is she talking about?”
Rebecca's face collapsed.
“Samantha—”
“You told me Jonathan helped us because Richard was my father.”
Rebecca started crying.
“I believed Jonathan.”
Samantha hung up.
For the first time, I saw the full shape of my husband's deception.
The affair was real.
But it wasn't the beginning.
It was merely the newest layer.
Jonathan had spent years positioning himself between people and the truth.
He gave everyone a different version.
To Richard, a bad investment.
To Rebecca, family protection.
To Samantha, secret inheritance.
To me, nothing.
Eleanor finally spoke.
“And you?”
I looked at her.
“How much did you know?”
She sat down.
“Not enough.”
“That isn't an answer.”
She nodded.
“You're right.”
Years ago, Eleanor had discovered Jonathan meeting Rebecca.
She confronted him.
He claimed Rebecca was trying to extort Richard with an old paternity accusation.
Jonathan asked his mother not to tell Richard because Richard's heart condition had recently been diagnosed.
Eleanor agreed.
She thought she was protecting her husband.
Instead, she protected Jonathan.
“I am sorry,” she said.
I believed her.
That didn't erase it.
But I believed her.
“What about the $2,800?”
Rebecca looked confused.
Then Richard understood.
“That was the amount I used to give Jonathan during graduate school.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said.
“But why repeat it now?”
My phone buzzed.
Samantha.
Not a call.
A photograph.
It showed a lease.
Her apartment.
Monthly rent: $2,800.
Underneath she wrote:
HE CHOSE THIS APARTMENT. I DIDN'T KNOW WHY.
Jonathan had recreated his father's old support payment.
Not because of sentiment.
Because on a statement, he could explain it to Richard if necessary as something familiar.
The cleverness of it made me sick.
Rebecca opened the laptop.
“I recovered something else.”
An email draft.
Never sent.
Written by Jonathan six years earlier.
If Dad finds out what I did, I'm finished.
Below it was a list.
Richard — 40K.
Rebecca — silence.
Samantha — trust.
Mom — fear.
I stared at the last line.
Mom — fear.
Eleanor looked wounded.
He had cataloged them.
Not as people.
As pressure points.
Then I saw another line.
Clara — later.
My skin went cold.
Six years ago.
Jonathan and I had been dating then.
“What does later mean?”
Nobody answered.
Rebecca clicked another folder.
Password protected.
“I couldn't open this.”
The folder name was simply:
C.
My phone rang.
Jonathan.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
His voice was calm.
“Why?”
“Because my mother isn't answering.”
“She doesn't want to.”
“Is Rebecca there?”
I looked at everyone.
“How would you know?”
Silence.
Then Jonathan said, “Clara, listen carefully. You need to stop.”
“No.”
“You don't understand what's happening.”
“For once, I think I'm beginning to.”
“You think this is about Samantha.”
“You slept with her.”
“That's not what I mean.”
“Then explain.”
He exhaled.
“I'll come over.”
“No.”
“Clara—”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“Don't open the folder.”
Every person in the room heard him.
I looked at the laptop.
“How do you know about the folder?”
Jonathan hung up.
Rebecca stared at me.
Richard locked the front door.
Eleanor closed the curtains.
Then the laptop made a soft sound.
The password-protected folder had changed.
Someone was remotely accessing the computer.
Files began disappearing.
One by one.
Rebecca lunged for the Wi-Fi router.
I pulled the power cable from the laptop.
The screen went black.
Silence.
Then my own phone lit up.
A message from Jonathan.
YOU WANT THE PASSWORD?
A second message arrived.
COME HOME.
ALONE.
May you like
And then a third.
I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT “CLARA — LATER” MEANS.
