Chapter 3 - WHAT CLAIRE KNEWI watched the video seventeen times.
Every time, the same sentence destroyed me.
Samantha was never the real danger.
At 8:06 the next morning, I drove to Rachel Morgan's office.
She looked at me for several seconds before saying, “You shouldn't have come here.”
“I'm done being kept in the dark.”
She closed the door.
“Then you're going to hear things you won't like.”
“I already have.”
Rachel placed a folder on her desk.
“Claire discovered unauthorized transfers from your company eight months ago.”
“I know.”
“She initially believed you were responsible.”
“I wasn't.”
“I know that now.”
I stared at her.
“How?”
“Because Claire hired an independent accountant.”
She opened the folder.
There were transaction records, screenshots, copies of emails.
And photographs.
Lots of photographs.
My stomach tightened.
Claire had been investigating me.
Not because she hated me.
Because she was trying to understand why money kept disappearing from my company.
“She thought I was stealing from my own business?”
“She thought you might be hiding financial problems.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
Rachel looked at me.
“Because she tried.”
That answer hurt.
“She told you?”
“She asked you to review the accounts.”
I remembered the note.
We need one honest conversation.
I had ignored it.
Rachel continued.
“Then Claire found something worse.”
She pushed another document toward me.
A list of names.
Three executives.
Two vendors.
One bank officer.
And Samantha's name.
My heart dropped.
“Samantha?”
“She was receiving payments.”
I stared at the numbers.
“That's impossible.”
“Look at the dates.”
They matched our hotel stays.
Jewelry purchases.
Restaurant bills.
Even the apartment she rented.
The money had been coming from an account connected to Carter Logistics.
I felt sick.
“I paid for those things.”
“Not entirely.”
“Who did?”
Rachel didn't answer.
Instead, she gave me another envelope.
Claire's handwriting.
If he finds this, tell him the truth about the night I left.
I opened it.
The letter was three pages.
Claire wrote that two weeks before leaving, she had noticed the black Mercedes outside the house.
Then it appeared near Hope's pediatrician.
Then outside her sister's apartment.
She had asked Samantha if she knew anything.
Samantha denied it.
But Claire had discovered something.
Samantha had been photographed meeting Peter Lawson.
My CFO.
At a private restaurant.
Three times.
There was more.
Claire had discovered that Peter had been transferring company money into shell companies.
One of those companies was connected to a private security firm.
The same firm had been monitoring Claire.
I felt my hands go cold.
“Why would Peter monitor my wife?”
Rachel said, “That's what Claire was trying to find out.”
I stared at the letter.
“She knew about the affair.”
“Yes.”
“But she didn't leave immediately.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Rachel's expression softened.
“Because she was afraid.”
The word landed harder than anything else.
Claire had been afraid of me.
Not physically.
But afraid that if she confronted me while someone was monitoring her, she might put Hope in danger.
I remembered all the nights she had looked exhausted.
All the questions I ignored.
All the times she had asked where I was.
I had called her paranoid.
I had told her she was overreacting.
She had been right.
A knock came at the door.
Rachel's assistant entered.
“There's a man downstairs asking for Mr. Carter.”
“Who?”
“He says his name is Michael Bennett.”
Rachel went still.
“Send him up.”
A minute later, a tall man in his early forties entered.
I recognized him from Claire's photograph.
Her brother.
He looked at me with open hostility.
“You're the husband.”
“Yes.”
“You don't deserve her.”
“I know.”
He seemed surprised.
Then he placed a phone on Rachel's desk.
“Claire is safe.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“You don't get that information.”
“She's my wife.”
“She was your wife when you chose another woman.”
I swallowed.
He wasn't wrong.
Michael continued.
“She found out Peter wasn't acting alone.”
“Who else?”
“Someone inside your bank.”
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He listened.
Then looked at me.
“Your house.”
“What about it?”
“Someone just entered.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
Michael showed me a security alert.
My empty house had motion detection.
Someone had entered through the back door.
I called the police.
Then I drove there.
Michael followed.
When we arrived, the front door was open.
Inside, nothing looked disturbed.
Until we reached the nursery.
The crib was still empty.
But someone had left something inside it.
A white envelope.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Hope.
My daughter.
Three months old.
Taken from outside our old house.
On the back were six words.
You should have listened to Claire.
Michael looked over my shoulder.
“That's not a threat.”
“What is it?”
“A warning.”
Then his phone rang again.
This time, the caller ID was blocked.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“You're looking in the wrong direction.”
Michael's face hardened.
“Who are you?”
The voice laughed.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“Ask Samantha who the baby's father really is.”
The call ended.
I stared at Michael.
He stared at me.
Neither of us spoke.
May you like
Because suddenly, the affair wasn't the biggest problem.
My daughter might be.
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