Chapter 11 - The Third Version of Andrew Parker.
The hotel receipt changed everything again.
Andrew insisted it meant nothing.
Natalie insisted she had found several similar receipts.
Rebecca demanded that Andrew stop speaking to her daughter.
Lorraine came downstairs in the middle of the argument and blamed me for creating chaos.
That was almost impressive.
Within twelve hours, Lorraine had transformed a thrown pot, an affair, financial fraud, forged signatures, and federal investigators into something I had somehow caused.
I looked at her suitcase.
“Where are you going?”
“To Andrew’s apartment.”
Andrew looked confused.
“What apartment?”
Lorraine stopped.
Everyone noticed.
I slowly turned toward Andrew.
“You have an apartment?”
“No.”
Lorraine immediately corrected herself.
“I meant a hotel.”
Rebecca laughed bitterly.
“You people cannot even coordinate your lies.”
Daniel began searching.
Twenty minutes later, he found it.
A furnished apartment in downtown Rochester.
The lease was under the name Parker-Morgan Property Holdings.
Rent was thirty-eight hundred dollars per month.
Andrew had been paying it for nearly a year.
I looked at him.
“Who lives there?”
“No one.”
“Then why does it exist?”
“For business meetings.”
Natalie laughed through her tears.
“You told me it was your apartment after separating from Claire.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
Then I looked at the hotel receipt.
“Was Vanessa there too?”
“No.”
I called Vanessa.
She answered after the second ring.
“I need the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Were you sleeping with my husband?”
Silence.
Then a quiet answer.
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“How long?”
“About six months.”
“When?”
“Before Natalie.”
I looked at Andrew.
He stared at the floor.
Vanessa continued.
She had believed Andrew was unhappy in his marriage.
Unlike Natalie, she knew he was married.
That fact mattered.
But not enough to make Andrew innocent.
Their affair ended when Vanessa discovered he was using her credentials to move company money.
She threatened to expose him.
Andrew threatened her career.
Then he began dating Natalie while still attempting to keep Vanessa quiet.
Three women.
Three different versions of himself.
With me, he was the devoted husband under financial stress.
With Vanessa, he was the trapped man planning to leave his wife.
With Natalie, he was practically divorced and building a new future.
I suddenly wondered how many versions of Andrew existed.
Megan sat beside me.
“Claire, there’s something important here.”
“What?”
“The apartment.”
She showed me payment records Daniel had found.
The rent did not come from Andrew’s personal account.
It came from the commercial property company.
The same company using my forged guarantee.
My stolen identity had effectively funded the apartment where my husband entertained other women.
I should have been furious.
Instead, I became very calm.
“I want him out.”
Megan nodded.
“We can seek temporary exclusive occupancy.”
“I mean tonight.”
She looked toward Andrew.
Because of the domestic incident involving Lorraine, fraud concerns, and the escalating situation, Megan advised that I could demand Andrew voluntarily leave while the court filings moved forward.
Andrew refused.
“This is my house too.”
“Then sleep in your office.”
“I’m your husband.”
“Not for long.”
Lorraine stepped between us.
“You cannot throw him onto the street.”
“He has a thirty-eight-hundred-dollar apartment.”
That silenced her.
Andrew stared at me.
“You’ve become cruel.”
I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
“Cruel would have been letting that pot hit me.”
His face tightened.
“You think Mom was trying to hurt you?”
“She threw cast iron at my head.”
“She was angry.”
“So were you when you forged my signature.”
I walked toward the staircase.
“Both of you should start learning that anger does not erase consequences.”
That evening, Andrew packed a bag.
Lorraine went with him.
For the first time in two years, I slept alone in my house.
At midnight, I heard something downstairs.
I grabbed my phone.
The back door was open.
Someone had entered the house.
When I reached Andrew’s office, drawers had been pulled onto the floor.
The black binder was gone.
But the federal agents had already taken it.
Whoever broke in had been looking for something else.
Then I noticed the safe behind the bookshelf.
Its door was open.
Inside, only one thing remained.
A photograph of my grandmother.
May you like
On the back, someone had written five words.
YOU DON’T OWN WHAT YOU THINK.
