Chapter 6 - The Lie Inside the Truth
Claudia did not call Sebastian.
She called the investigator.
Thomas Greer had worked private cases throughout Fairfield County for twenty-three years.
He answered sleepily.
“Mrs. Navarro?”
“Who paid you?”
Silence.
That was enough.
“Who paid you to alter the photographs?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Claudia sent him the second image.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then Greer exhaled.
“Where did you get that?”
“Answer me.”
“I was hired to document your husband.”
“By me.”
“At first.”
Her hand tightened around the phone.
Greer confessed in pieces.
After Claudia hired him, another client approached him.
Cash.
Fifty thousand dollars.
His instructions were simple.
Continue following Sebastian.
Give Claudia authentic evidence whenever possible.
But frame ambiguous encounters to look intimate.
“Marcus?”
“I never met him.”
“You took money to destroy my marriage.”
“I took money to photograph your husband.”
“You cropped Marcus out.”
Greer said nothing.
Claudia hung up.
She felt sick.
Not because Sebastian was innocent.
He wasn’t.
The perfume was real.
Porsche had been in his vehicle.
The secret phone was real.
His emotional distance was real.
But someone had deliberately fed Claudia’s fear.
The question was why.
Sebastian arrived forty minutes later after Claudia finally called him.
She handed him the phone.
He studied the image.
“That meeting was about a client acquisition.”
“Why was it at a hotel?”
“Conference upstairs.”
“At one in the morning?”
“It ran late.”
“Why was Porsche there?”
“Communications.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sebastian looked at her.
“Because you’d already asked me about her twice, and I knew how it looked.”
Claudia laughed without humor.
“So you hid it because hiding it looked less suspicious?”
“Yes.”
“That’s incredibly stupid.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
Despite herself, she almost laughed.
Then her face hardened.
“The perfume?”
“She spilled it in my car.”
“The second phone?”
“Work security.”
“Why hide it?”
“I wasn’t hiding it.”
“It was inside a locked drawer.”
Sebastian paused.
“Fine. I was hiding it.”
“Thank you.”
“Not from you specifically. It contained confidential communications.”
“Which included Porsche?”
“Yes.”
Claudia looked away.
Sebastian did not reach for her.
“I did not sleep with her.”
“I believe you.”
He seemed startled.
She continued.
“That doesn’t fix what happened.”
“I know.”
“You let another woman occupy space that belonged to our marriage.”
“Yes.”
“You made me question myself.”
“Yes.”
“You missed Sophie.”
His voice dropped.
“Yes.”
“And when I told you to go, you went.”
That was the one he could barely answer.
“Yes.”
Claudia’s eyes filled.
Sebastian looked down.
“I thought coming back with an explanation would be enough.”
“That was always your problem.”
“What?”
“You thought you could repair emotional damage with information.”
He absorbed that.
Then his phone rang.
His security director.
Sebastian listened for less than a minute.
His expression changed.
“What happened?” Claudia asked.
“Marcus used one of my company cards.”
“Where?”
“Newark Airport.”
“He’s leaving?”
“No.”
Sebastian turned the phone toward her.
“He rented a car.”
Marcus was coming north.
The farmhouse went into lockdown.
Two security vehicles blocked the access road.
Police were notified.
But Marcus never arrived.
Instead, at 2:18 a.m., Sophie screamed.
Claudia ran upstairs.
Sophie stood beside her bedroom window.
A rock had shattered the outer pane.
Wrapped around it was a photograph.
Sebastian grabbed it before Sophie could.
The photograph showed Noah in Claudia’s arms outside the hospital.
Taken two days earlier.
On the back:
GIVE ME THE DRIVE.
Claudia went cold.
“What drive?”
Sebastian looked at her.
“The one you took from my study.”
She remembered the flash drive from the safe.
“I thought those were copies of financial records.”
“They are.”
“Then why does Marcus want them?”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
“Because there must be something else on it.”
They opened the drive on an offline laptop.
Most folders were familiar.
Invoices.
Transfers.
Company records.
Then Sebastian found a hidden encrypted directory.
He recognized the file structure.
“These aren’t financial records.”
“What are they?”
“Shipping manifests.”
Hundreds of them.
Ports.
Dates.
Security assignments.
Cargo.
And beside certain shipments, a symbol.
A black triangle.
Sebastian’s face lost color.
Claudia noticed.
“What?”
He enlarged one document.
“This ship was hijacked.”
Another.
“This one too.”
Another.
A fire.
Another.
A disappearance.
Claudia stared at him.
“Marcus was selling routes.”
Sebastian shook his head.
“No.”
His eyes remained fixed on the screen.
“He was selecting targets.”
Then they reached the final file.
A future date.
January 8.
A Navarro Maritime vessel departing New York Harbor.
Cargo listed as medical equipment.
Sebastian knew it was false.
The vessel was transporting something far more sensitive.
And beside the route was a name.
S. NAVARRO — ON BOARD.
Claudia looked at her husband.
“He expects you to be on that ship.”
Sebastian stared at the screen.
“No.”
May you like
His voice was very quiet.
“He needs me to be.”
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