Chapter 6 - Forty-Eight Million ReasonsI had forty-eight million dollars.
Police found her Mercedes abandoned in the parking garage of a luxury hotel twenty minutes from St. Matthew’s.
Her wedding dress was folded across the back seat.
Her phone was inside the glove compartment.
Her passport was gone.
By evening, the story had escaped containment.
Someone from the reception had posted a video.
Not of me.
Not of the hospital.
Of Derek walking out of his own wedding.
The caption read:
GROOM ABANDONS BRIDE 3 HOURS AFTER CEREMONY.
By dinner, it had been viewed more than two million times.
Then someone recognized Derek.
He was a regional developer whose company had recently announced a major waterfront project.
The local press connected Vanessa.
Then the hospital.
Then me.
My phone became unusable.
Hannah turned it off.
“You don’t need the internet today.”
“That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’ve said smarter.”
“Name one.”
“You should never have married Derek.”
I stared at her.
She grinned.
I threw a pillow.
It hurt my incision.
We both immediately regretted the joke.
Then Eli began crying.
And for a few minutes, everything became wonderfully small.
Feed.
Burp.
Blanket.
Diaper.
The ordinary work of keeping a newborn alive.
That evening Derek returned with an attorney.
Not his divorce attorney.
A criminal defense lawyer.
His name was Martin Greene.
“I’m not under investigation,” Derek said quickly.
“That sounds like something people under investigation say.”
He almost smiled.
“Fair.”
Greene explained that police were reviewing Vanessa’s financial activity.
The missing $900,000 had not simply vanished.
It had moved through three shell companies.
One of those companies had made payments to a private investigator.
I looked at Derek.
“Why would she hire an investigator?”
Greene answered.
“To investigate Claire.”
My skin went cold.
“For what?”
“We don’t know.”
They did know.
I could see it.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Derek looked at Greene.
Greene sighed.
“There are records of surveillance dating back eight months.”
Before the affair became serious.
Before Derek moved out.
Before the fall.
“What was she looking for?”
“We’re trying to determine that.”
Hannah stood.
“Get out.”
“Hannah—”
“No. She had a baby yesterday.”
“Two days ago,” I corrected.
“Not helping.”
Derek stood too.
“I didn’t know.”
“That sentence is becoming your autobiography,” Hannah snapped.
He absorbed it silently.
After they left, I called Rebecca.
My attorney answered immediately.
“I heard.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the investigator?”
“Because I learned eleven minutes before you did.”
“What does Vanessa want from me?”
“I’m going to find out.”
Rebecca had a way of making impossible things sound administrative.
“Sleep.”
“I have a newborn.”
“Then pretend.”
The next morning, I was discharged.
Going home terrified me.
Not because of Vanessa.
Because the house still remembered Derek.
His coffee mug.
The indentation on his side of the mattress.
The garage shelves he installed badly and refused to admit were crooked.
Hannah had moved in temporarily.
She decorated the living room with balloons.
WELCOME HOME, ELI.
I cried before I made it through the doorway.
Three hours later, someone rang the bell.
Hannah checked the camera.
“It’s Derek.”
I almost said no.
Then Eli stirred.
“Let him in.”
Derek entered carrying nothing.
No flowers.
No gifts.
I appreciated that.
“Can I see him?”
“From there.”
He stayed six feet away.
For several minutes he simply watched Eli sleep.
Then he said, “Vanessa was arrested.”
I looked up.
“Where?”
“Private airfield outside Richmond.”
“What was she doing?”
“Trying to charter a flight.”
“With what passport?”
“Hers.”
“Where?”
“Bahamas.”
That seemed almost insultingly predictable.
“What charges?”
“Financial crimes for now. Ortiz says assault charges depend on the prosecutor.”
Derek rubbed his jaw.
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“The investigator wasn’t hired to catch you cheating.”
“I assumed.”
“He was looking into your family.”
I frowned.
“My family?”
“Your grandfather.”
I sat straighter.
“What about him?”
My grandfather, Arthur Bell, had died three years earlier.
He was a quiet man who owned several hardware stores and lived in the same modest house for forty-two years.
“He left you something,” Derek said.
“I know. A trust.”
“You told me it wasn’t accessible until I was forty.”
“That’s what my mother told me.”
Derek looked uncomfortable.
“The investigator found documents suggesting it’s much larger than you thought.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Derek.”
“Potentially eight figures.”
I laughed.
He didn’t.
My laughter died.
“That’s impossible.”
“Vanessa knew.”
“How?”
“She was investigating you before we started the affair.”
The room went silent.
I heard the refrigerator hum.
A car outside.
Eli breathing.
“What are you saying?”
Derek’s face looked sick.
“I think she targeted me.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“I met her at a charity board meeting. She already knew where I worked. She knew we were married. She knew about your grandfather.”
“You’re telling me she had an affair with you to reach my inheritance?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then don’t say things you don’t know.”
He nodded.
Fair.
I walked to the window.
My grandfather’s trust had always been background information.
My mother said it contained a few investments.
Maybe enough to help with retirement.
I never asked.
Grandpa hated people measuring life in money.
Before he died, he told me one thing.
When you have something worth protecting, don’t advertise it.
I had assumed he meant family.
Perhaps he meant more.
“Rebecca needs to see this.”
“She already knows.”
I turned.
“You contacted my attorney?”
“She contacted mine.”
That sounded more like Rebecca.
Derek approached one step.
“I am sorry.”
I closed my eyes.
“Stop.”
“I need to say it.”
“You’ve said it.”
“Not correctly.”
I faced him.
He looked wrecked.
For the first time since our marriage ended, I did not see the charming developer who could convince investors to buy into neighborhoods that existed only in renderings.
I saw the boy I met at twenty-three.
Flawed.
Scared.
Human.
“I didn’t leave because Vanessa manipulated me,” he said. “I left because I was weak enough to want what she offered.”
I said nothing.
“She made me feel uncomplicated.”
His eyes moved toward Eli.
“And instead of growing up, I ran toward uncomplicated.”
“That’s true.”
“I abandoned you when you needed me.”
“Yes.”
“I believed what was easiest.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t expect forgiveness.”
“Good.”
He nodded.
Then the doorbell rang again.
Hannah checked the camera.
Her face changed.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“It’s Rebecca.”
My attorney entered holding a thick envelope.
She did not sit.
“I found the trust documents.”
I looked at her.
“And?”
She placed them on the table.
“Your grandfather did not leave you a modest retirement account.”
“How much?”
Rebecca took off her glasses.
“As of last quarter?”
She looked directly at me.
“Forty-eight point six million dollars.”
Derek nearly dropped the water glass in his hand.
May you like
But Rebecca’s next sentence mattered more.
“And Vanessa tried to change the beneficiary structure three months ago.”
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