Chapter 6 - LAUREN’S SILENCE

The voice on the other end of Matthew’s call was not audible.

It did not need to be.

The call record showed Lauren’s number.

Detective Chen replayed the clip.

“You heard all twenty.”

Matthew’s expression on the small screen was almost proud.

“Now you know I am serious.”

I watched it three times.

The first time, I felt sick.

The second time, I felt nothing.

The third time, I noticed something behind him.

A man stood near the elevator.

He wore the gray uniform of the building’s overnight maintenance staff.

His name was Victor Alvarez.

He had witnessed Matthew leaving.

Detective Chen had already interviewed him.

Victor reported that Matthew appeared calm.

He was not frightened.

He was not injured.

He was not fleeing an attack.

He paused long enough to complain that the elevator smelled like cleaning chemicals.

Matthew’s story of self-defense had begun collapsing before the sun fully rose.

Lauren’s silence remained more complicated.

Her attorney claimed she had not understood what she heard during the call.

She believed Matthew was striking furniture.

She believed I was exaggerating.

She believed the counting was part of an argument.

Twenty strikes.

Twenty excuses.

My father wanted her charged immediately.

Detective Chen explained that prosecutors would decide whether Lauren’s conduct met the legal standard for criminal liability.

I did not care about the legal vocabulary.

I cared that she had listened.

I cared that Matthew had performed my pain for her approval.

My mother sat near the window, folding and unfolding a tissue.

“Why would any woman want that?”

“She may not have wanted it,” I said.

“Then she should have stopped it.”

“Yes.”

My mother looked at me.

“Why are you defending her?”

“I am not.”

I closed my eyes.

“I am trying to understand the difference between someone who is cruel and someone who is afraid.”

My father turned from the window.

“Fear does not erase choice.”

“No.”

“It only explains how someone lives with it.”

At noon, NexusCore’s internal audit team found that Blue Harbor Estates was not the only suspicious company.

Three consulting firms had received large payments during the previous eighteen months.

All three were connected to Lauren.

A fourth company was registered to Matthew’s cousin.

A fifth owned a yacht neither Matthew nor Lauren had disclosed.

The forty-eight-million-dollar transfer had been intended to complete a purchase in the Cayman Islands.

Matthew had not only built a second life.

He had been preparing an exit.

The packed suitcases in the Hamptons house were not for a vacation.

He and Lauren had planned to leave the country.

The board’s emergency action had trapped them before they reached the airport.

At two in the afternoon, an attorney named Rebecca Cole arrived at my hospital room.

She represented Lauren.

“I am not speaking to her,” my father said.

Rebecca looked at me.

“I came to speak to Clare.”

“You can speak through counsel.”

“I have permission to deliver one message.”

I asked the nurse and my parents to give us a moment.

My father refused at first.

Then he saw my expression and stepped outside with my mother.

Rebecca placed a sealed envelope on the table.

“Lauren wants you to know that Milo is not Matthew’s child.”

I stared at her.

“She also wants you to know Matthew told her you had agreed to an open marriage.”

I almost laughed.

“Of course he did.”

“She knows you do not believe her.”

“I believe Matthew lied.”

“That is not the same as believing Lauren.”

“No.”

Rebecca pushed the envelope closer.

“She has documents.”

“What kind?”

“Financial records.”

“Then she should give them to the police.”

“She is willing to cooperate.”

“For immunity?”

“For her son.”

I looked at the envelope.

“What does she want from me?”

“She wants your father to stop.”

“My father has barely started.”

Rebecca’s face tightened.

“Lauren believes he can destroy everyone connected to Matthew.”

“She should have considered that before listening to him hurt me.”

Rebecca stood.

At the door, she paused.

“The call was recorded.”

My breath stopped.

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“By whom?”

“Lauren.”