Chapter 2 - Twelve Calls.
The first thing I did after Martin hung up was call Claire again.
The thirteenth call went straight to voicemail.
So did the fourteenth.
By the fifteenth, I stopped pretending I was calling because I cared whether she was frightened.
I wanted information.
I wanted location.
I wanted leverage.
Most of all, I wanted the version of the morning in which Claire had overreacted and I was still the reasonable one.
That version disappeared before lunch.
Martin's office occupied the twenty-seventh floor of a glass tower in Stamford.
I arrived wearing the same clothes I had worn to the hotel.
He noticed.
He said nothing about the faint mark of lipstick near my shirt collar.
That somehow felt worse.
A man I had never met was sitting in Martin's conference room.
He was compact, gray-haired, and expressionless.
"This is Daniel Reyes," Martin said.
"Private investigator."
I stared at him.
"Why do I need a private investigator?"
Daniel slid a thin folder across the table.
"You don't."
His voice was flat.
"Your attorney asked me to find out what evidence might already exist."
I did not touch the folder.
"And?"
Daniel opened it himself.
The first page was a bank statement.
A charge for $2,380 at the Grand Meridian appeared halfway down the page.
Another line showed dinner at Le Varenne.
Another showed a jewelry purchase from a boutique on Madison Avenue.
Another showed overnight valet.
My stomach tightened.
"Those are business expenses."
Daniel looked at me without expression.
"Then your business has expensive taste in champagne."
Martin shot him a warning glance.
Daniel turned the page.
A still image from security footage showed me entering the hotel lobby with Vanessa.
She was wearing the red coat I had bought her in December.
My hand was at the small of her back.
There was no business explanation for that picture.
"Where did you get this?"
"The hotel retained footage pursuant to a preservation request."
"From Claire?"
"From her attorney."
My mouth went dry.
"They cannot just take private footage."
"They didn't take it."
Martin leaned forward.
"They asked the hotel not to delete it."
I turned to him.
"You said we were here to discuss custody."
"We are."
"Then why are we talking about Vanessa?"
Martin's eyes hardened.
"Because you told me under an hour ago that you were in Boston."
I looked away.
"I panicked."
"Do not panic with your lawyer."
"It has nothing to do with Noah."
"That depends on what you spent, where the money came from, and whether your absence affected his care."
I pushed back from the table.
"Claire was home."
Daniel finally showed the first hint of emotion.
His eyebrows lifted.
"That is your defense?"
"My defense is that Noah was cared for."
"By your wife."
"Yes."
"While you told her you were working."
I stood.
"I'm not taking a morality lecture from a private investigator."
Martin pointed at the chair.
"Sit down."
I almost refused.
Then I remembered why I was there.
I sat.
Martin placed another document in front of me.
It was a notice of an emergency family court conference.
Claire had filed that morning.
She was requesting temporary primary residential custody of Noah, exclusive temporary use of the Greenwich house, preservation of marital assets, and an order preventing either of us from transferring significant funds without disclosure.
I read the last line twice.
"She wants to lock me out of my own money."
"She wants to freeze major transfers until the financial picture is clear."
"The financial picture is clear."
Martin looked at Daniel.
Daniel opened a second folder.
"Is it?"
The question irritated me more than it should have.
"What now?"
"Your wife requested six months of statements from the joint accounts."
"So?"
"She also requested statements from Carter Strategic Holdings, Carter Ridge Ventures, and a company called Northstar Strategy Group."
My pulse changed.
I kept my face still.
"Northstar is a vendor."
"What kind?"
"Consulting."
"For what?"
"Market development."
Daniel waited.
I hated people who knew how to use silence.
"You can ask my CFO."
"We did."
That got my attention.
"You called Mason?"
"No."
Daniel folded his hands.
"Claire's forensic accountant already did."
I looked at Martin.
"Forensic accountant?"
"She retained one eleven days ago."
I heard Linda's voice again.
She worked until the final month of her pregnancy.
Claire had been a financial controller before Noah was born.
She understood balance sheets better than most of the people who reported to me.
I had spent years joking that she could find a missing dollar in a billion-dollar ledger.
Apparently I had forgotten the joke.
"What did they find?"
Martin rubbed his jaw.
"We don't know everything yet."
"Then why am I here?"
"Because I need you to tell me everything before opposing counsel does."
"I already told you."
"No."
His voice was sharper now.
"You told me a version."
I looked at the hotel photo again.
"Vanessa and I have been seeing each other for six months."
Martin did not react.
Daniel did not react either.
The lack of surprise told me everything.
"Claire knew?"
"At least six weeks," Daniel said.
That number made no sense.
Six weeks ago, Claire had made me coffee before a morning meeting.
Six weeks ago, she had asked whether I wanted salmon or chicken for dinner.
Six weeks ago, she had placed Noah in my arms and taken a photograph of us because she said he looked exactly like me when he frowned.
"No."
Daniel slid three photographs across the table.
The first showed Vanessa and me leaving a restaurant.
The second showed us outside her apartment.
The third showed us entering the Grand Meridian on a night I had told Claire I was stranded near Boston because of weather.
Dates were printed beneath each image.
The oldest was forty-three days earlier.
"She hired someone?"
"Yes."
The humiliation burned hotter than the guilt.
"She was spying on me."
Martin stared at me.
"Do not say that in court."
"Why not?"
"Because your wife confirming that her husband was lying about overnight travel is not going to make you look like the injured party."
I stood again.
This time Martin let me.
I walked to the window and stared at the traffic below.
"Fine."
I forced my voice steady.
"She knows about Vanessa."
"Yes."
"She wants a divorce."
"Yes."
"We fight the custody request and divide the assets."
Neither man answered.
I turned.
"What?"
Martin's phone buzzed.
He looked at the message.
Then he looked at me.
"Claire's attorney just produced a preliminary financial schedule."
"And?"
Martin did not answer right away.
He handed the phone to Daniel.
Daniel read the screen, then placed it face down.
For the first time, the investigator looked genuinely concerned.
"Mr. Carter, did your wife ever authorize you to pledge any part of her family trust as security for Carter Ridge Ventures?"
The room seemed to narrow around me.
I thought of a document I had signed four months earlier.
I thought of a digital signature I had told myself was a technicality.
I thought of the sentence my attorney had texted me that morning.
Claire knows about Vanessa, but that isn't the worst thing she found.
I sat back down without being asked.
"What exactly did she send you?"
May you like
Martin's answer was quiet.
"A signature page with her name on it."
