Chapter 10 - The Woman in Val's Face.
Val did not slap Adrian.
She did not shout.
She did not throw anything.
The lack of reaction frightened him more than anger would have.
"How long?" she asked.
Adrian stared at the floor.
"Six months."
"When?"
"It ended last year."
"When last year?"
"March."
Val calculated backward.
Her mother had died in February.
She had spent March traveling between probate meetings, the twins' preschool, and Mercer Development's financing crisis.
Adrian had complained that she was emotionally absent.
Apparently he had found attendance elsewhere.
"Did your mother know?"
His hesitation answered.
"Yes."
Val looked toward the black insurance box.
"Did Sabrina know Lenora?"
"Yes."
"Did she ever have access to my documents?"
"I don't know."
"Did she have access to your office?"
"Yes."
"Your phone?"
He closed his eyes.
"Sometimes."
Marcus looked away to give them the smallest illusion of privacy.
Val felt oddly detached.
The affair hurt.
But it arrived in the middle of something so much larger that grief had to stand in line.
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know. She quit after we ended things."
"Why did you end it?"
Adrian looked at her.
"Because she started talking about you."
"What about me?"
"She said you were weak. She said my mother was right and that the company needed someone who understood the Mercer name."
Val almost laughed.
"That offended you?"
"It sounded like my mother."
"Because it was your mother."
He shook his head.
"I didn't know they were working together."
"You knew they talked."
"At charity events. Dinners."
"You brought your mistress to dinners with your mother?"
His face burned.
"Not like that."
Val turned away.
There were some phrases marriage could not survive hearing because they revealed a universe of excuses behind them.
Not like that was one.
Marcus received an update from investigators.
Sabrina Cole had left the state eight months earlier.
Her last listed address was a rented apartment in Boston.
A private investigator retained by counsel was asked to locate her for service of a subpoena.
Val returned to the hotel before the twins' bedtime.
She sat on the carpet building a wooden train track while Owen described a dinosaur that could apparently drive a fire truck.
Theo leaned against her shoulder.
For twenty minutes, she existed only inside their small world.
Then Theo asked the question she feared.
"Are you and Dad mad forever?"
Val put down the wooden bridge.
"I don't know."
"Will he live with us?"
"Not right now."
"Did he say sorry?"
Val thought of the villa.
"Not yet."
Theo considered that.
"Maybe he forgot how."
Val hugged him.
"Maybe."
At nine, Marcus arrived with Rebecca and a cyber-forensics consultant named Amir Patel.
They had examined metadata from the disputed documents.
The forged divorce exhibit, insurance application, and Northlight beneficiary form had all been created on the same computer.
"Whose?" Val asked.
Amir opened a report.
"A laptop registered through Mercer Family Office."
"Lenora's?"
"The device was assigned to her executive assistant pool."
Celeste had used one such laptop.
So had two assistants after her.
The metadata alone did not identify the typist.
But the file history contained initials.
SC.
Sabrina Cole.
Val felt the pieces snap together.
"She wasn't just Adrian's affair."
Marcus nodded.
"She was helping Lenora build documents."
Rebecca added another page.
"And there is more. Sabrina received monthly payments from Northlight after leaving Mercer Development."
Adrian had joined the meeting by video from his attorney's office.
His face went pale on the screen.
"How much?"
"Fifteen thousand a month."
"For what?"
"The memo line says consulting."
He looked sick.
Val had expected betrayal to make her feel powerful once discovered.
Instead it made the past feel contaminated.
Every late meeting.
Every canceled dinner.
Every time Lenora praised Sabrina's efficiency.
At ten eighteen, the private investigator called.
Sabrina had been located.
She was not in Boston.
She was in a town two hours north of the city, staying at a private rehabilitation and wellness clinic under her middle name.
Rebecca requested that she be approached through counsel.
At eleven six, Sabrina called Val directly.
No one knew how she got the hotel number.
Val put the call on speaker.
A woman's voice whispered.
"I need to talk to you before Lenora finds me."
Val's pulse quickened.
"Why?"
"Because I did things I'm ashamed of."
Adrian appeared frozen on the laptop screen.
Sabrina continued.
"But the signatures weren't the worst thing she asked me to do."
Val looked at Marcus.
"What was the worst thing?"
There was a long pause.
Then Sabrina started crying quietly.
"She wanted me to become you."
Val's skin went cold.
"For what?"
May you like
Sabrina answered in a whisper.
"For the day you disappeared."
