Chapter 4 - The Photographs
My first thought was that Rachel had lied.
My second was worse.
What photographs?
Emma’s letter continued.
She showed me pictures of you leaving her house after midnight. Pictures of you holding her outside the hospital. Pictures from lunches you never told me about.
I knew every moment.
And none meant what they looked like.
That didn't make them harmless.
Rachel’s father had been hospitalized in November. I had driven her there after she called me crying. Outside the emergency entrance, she had hugged me.
I hadn't pushed her away.
Lunches?
Two.
Maybe three.
I had never mentioned them to Emma because I knew they would make her uncomfortable.
That realization made my defense collapse before I could form it.
If there had been nothing wrong with hiding those meetings, why had I hidden them?
Emma’s letter continued.
Rachel told me you said our marriage had become “complicated.” She said you were staying because of the baby.
“No.”
I said it aloud.
A woman across the waiting room looked at me.
I read faster.
I asked her to leave. I wanted to ask you about it. Then you came home and spent forty minutes telling me how everything would collapse if the bank pulled your financing. I watched you rub your eyes because you hadn't slept. And I couldn't make myself become one more emergency you had to solve.
I pressed the paper against my forehead.
I had said the word complicated.
But not about my marriage.
Rachel had asked how Emma was handling my work schedule.
I said:
Pregnancy has made everything complicated. I hate leaving her alone.
Rachel had removed the middle.
Changed the meaning.
Why?
I called her.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I drove to her house.
Her car was gone.
I knocked until a neighbor opened his door.
“She left an hour ago,” he said.
“Did she say where?”
“No.”
Back in my car, I called Rachel’s father’s hospital.
That was when another lie appeared.
“Thomas Collins?” the receptionist repeated.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, sir. There’s no current patient by that name.”
“He’s been there for weeks.”
“No.”
I called another hospital.
Then another.
Nothing.
Finally, I called Thomas himself.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Merry Christmas, Daniel.”
My blood went cold.
“Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“Where are you?”
“Scottsdale.”
“Arizona?”
He laughed.
“Unless they moved it.”
“Aren't you sick?”
Silence.
“I had surgery in October.”
“Rachel said you were dying.”
“What?”
My grip tightened.
“She told me your cancer came back.”
“I never had cancer.”
I ended the call.
For several seconds, I simply sat there.
Rachel hadn't returned to Chicago because her father was dying.
Her grief story was partly true—her husband had died eighteen months earlier—but everything involving her father had been constructed to keep me close.
My phone rang.
Michael.
“Emma wants her laptop.”
“I’m getting it.”
“And Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“Don't make this worse.”
I almost snapped at him.
Instead, I said, “Rachel lied.”
“What?”
I told him.
Michael went quiet.
“Bring the laptop.”
I drove home.
Emma’s laptop sat inside the desk in our bedroom.
As I lifted it, I noticed the drawer was open.
Inside was a velvet jewelry box.
Her wedding ring wasn't there.
My stomach turned.
Then I saw something else.
A second envelope.
For Daniel if I don't come home.
I opened it.
Inside were copies of bank records.
Dozens of transactions.
At first I thought they belonged to Emma.
Then I saw my company’s name.
Bennett Capital Partners.
Payments had been transferred over six months into an outside consulting company.
Total:
$1.8 million.
My mouth went dry.
My investment hadn't collapsed because of market conditions alone.
Someone had been draining us.
The consulting company was called Northstar Advisory.
I knew the name.
Rachel worked for Northstar.
I called my chief financial officer, Marcus Dean.
He answered sleepily.
“Merry Christmas, boss.”
“Open your laptop.”
“What?”
“Now.”
Ten minutes later, his voice changed.
“Daniel, where did you get these?”
“Emma.”
“These approvals have your authorization code.”
“I didn't approve them.”
“That code requires—”
“I know what it requires.”
A password.
And a physical authentication token.
The token was normally kept in my office safe.
Only three people knew the combination.
Me.
Marcus.
And my executive assistant, Natalie.
But Rachel had visited my office twice since returning to Chicago.
Both times at my invitation.
“Freeze everything,” I said.
“Daniel, if we freeze corporate transfers on Christmas—”
“Do it.”
I grabbed Emma’s laptop.
As I was leaving, someone knocked.
Rachel.
She stood on my porch with snow in her hair.
“Daniel.”
I stared at her.
“Your father is in Arizona.”
Her face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
“You called him?”
“You told me he was dying.”
“I said he was sick.”
“You said hospice.”
She looked past me.
“Can I come inside?”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Did you show Emma photographs of us?”
Silence.
That was my answer.
“Why?”
“Because she deserved the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That you’re unhappy.”
“You don't know anything about my marriage.”
“I know you called me whenever things got hard.”
“No. You called me.”
“And you answered.”
That hurt because it was true.
Rachel stepped closer.
“You can pretend there wasn't something between us.”
“There wasn't.”
Her eyes filled.
“Maybe not for you.”
The anger inside me shifted.
This wasn't simply manipulation.
Rachel had built an entire future around attention I should never have given her.
But then I remembered the bank records.
“Northstar.”
Rachel froze.
I saw it.
“What about it?”
“My company transferred nearly two million dollars to Northstar.”
“I don't handle accounts.”
“Who does?”
“I don't know.”
“Rachel.”
She backed away.
“I should go.”
I caught the doorframe, blocking her path to the driveway.
“Did you steal from me?”
“No.”
“Did you help someone steal from me?”
“No.”
“Then why are you afraid?”
She looked at me.
And whispered:
“Because the money wasn't being stolen from you.”
“What?”
“It was being returned.”
“To whom?”
Rachel’s eyes shifted toward the house.
“To the family your company stole it from first.”
I stared at her.
“My company didn't exist until eight years ago.”
“I didn't say your company did it.”
“Then who?”
“Your father.”
My blood went cold.
“My father has been dead for six years.”
Rachel nodded.
“So is Richard Carter.”
Emma’s father.
And suddenly Michael’s story collided with mine.
Two million dollars.
A missing brother.
A disgraced family.
Rachel looked at the laptop under my arm.
“Emma found the same thing I did.”
“What thing?”
“That your father and hers were business partners.”
I couldn't speak.
Rachel took another step backward.
“Ask Michael why he disappeared.”
“You know Michael?”
Her expression told me I had asked the wrong question.
“Rachel.”
She reached her car.
“Ask him what happened in Boston in 2008.”
Then she drove away.
I stood in the snow.
Twenty minutes later, I returned to the hospital.
Michael was waiting.
I placed the laptop on the chair between us.
“Boston,” I said.
His face changed.
“2008.”
He didn't answer.
“My father and Richard Carter.”
Still nothing.
“Tell me.”
Michael looked through the glass toward Emma’s room.
Then back at me.
“Your father destroyed my family.”
May you like
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
“And mine blamed me for it.”
