Chapter 6 - THE MISTRESS WHO THOUGHT SHE HAD WONMadison Brooks called me at 8:03 the following morning.
I was staying at a small hotel near Rebecca's office because I no longer felt safe returning to the marital home.
I had slept for three hours.
My eyes were swollen.
And my wedding ring sat inside the hotel safe.
When Madison's name appeared on my screen, I almost ignored it.
Then I remembered Julia's testimony.
The consulting payments.
The five-million-dollar promise.
The deliberate attempt to make me appear unstable.
I answered.
"Hello, Madison."
Her voice was sugary.
"Eleanor! I'm so glad you picked up."
I said nothing.
"I thought maybe we could meet. Woman to woman."
I almost laughed.
"Why?"
She sighed.
"Because Christopher is very upset, and I think a lot of this has gotten out of hand."
"Has it?"
"I understand you're grieving."
There it was again.
The same phrase Christopher had used.
The same implication.
Grief made me irrational.
Pain made me unreliable.
If they repeated it enough, perhaps other people would believe it.
"I'm not interested in discussing my grief with you," I said.
Madison's tone cooled.
"There's no reason to be hostile."
"Then tell me what you want."
A pause.
"Christopher says you've been making accusations about money."
"I've been asking questions."
"Questions can be damaging when people don't understand the answers."
I closed my eyes.
She sounded just like him.
"Did Christopher teach you that sentence?"
Silence.
Then a soft laugh.
"You know, Eleanor, I actually feel sorry for you."
I sat up.
"Really?"
"You're almost forty. You've spent your entire adult life being somebody's wife. And now you're trying to fight people who understand business."
I looked toward the hotel window.
Chicago was waking beneath a cold gray sky.
Taxis moved along the street.
People hurried toward offices.
The world continued turning, completely indifferent to my ruined marriage.
Madison continued.
"You're embarrassing yourself."
I let her talk.
"You should take the settlement Christopher offered and start over somewhere quiet."
"Fifty thousand dollars?"
"That's generous, considering your circumstances."
I thought of my father's locket.
Of the trust documents.
Of the business Christopher had helped conceal from me.
"Madison, do you know who my father was?"
A pause.
"Why would I?"
"Samuel Bennett."
"Should that mean something?"
"It will."
She laughed.
"Are you threatening me?"
"No."
I smiled faintly.
"I'm giving you the same opportunity you just gave me."
"Which is?"
"To reconsider the choices you're making."
Her tone sharpened.
"Christopher loves me."
"Then you should ask him why he's hiding money from you too."
Silence.
A long silence.
Finally, she said, "You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Perhaps."
I ended the call.
Then I forwarded the call details and a contemporaneous note of the conversation to Rebecca.
I wasn't going to fight dirty.
I wasn't going to fabricate evidence.
But I was finished letting them control the story.
At ten o'clock, Rebecca brought news.
"The court has scheduled a preliminary evidentiary hearing for next Thursday."
"Will Christopher have to appear?"
"Yes. So will his attorney if certain issues require explanation."
"And Madison?"
"Potentially. We're seeking testimony and records relating to the consulting contracts."
I looked at her.
"Can they still take everything?"
"We don't know the final outcome. But the evidence gives us grounds to challenge the transactions and your husband's claims."
I nodded.
Then Rebecca placed a second file on the table.
"There's something else."
I almost smiled.
Every time she said those words, another piece of my former life collapsed.
"What now?"
"We located the third man in your father's photograph."
I leaned forward.
"The one beside him and Thomas?"
"Yes. His name is Arthur Caldwell."
"Is he alive?"
"Very much so."
"Where?"
"Naperville."
I stared.
"He's been living forty minutes from us all this time?"
Rebecca nodded.
"He's seventy-four. Retired engineer. Never married. And when we told him your name, he started crying."
My throat tightened.
"Why?"
Rebecca looked at me.
"He said he's been waiting twenty-five years to tell you what happened."
We drove to Naperville that afternoon.
Arthur Caldwell lived in a modest brick house with a red front door and an American flag hanging from the porch.
He answered wearing a flannel shirt and worn blue jeans.
His white beard made him look older than seventy-four.
But his eyes were clear.
The moment he saw me, his expression crumpled.
"Oh, Ellie."
I froze.
Nobody had called me Ellie in that particular voice since my father died.
Arthur stepped forward.
"You look so much like your mother."
I began crying before he even embraced me.
He held me carefully.
Like someone afraid I might disappear.
"Come inside, sweetheart."
His house smelled of coffee and old books.
Photographs covered the walls.
Engineering awards.
Family reunions.
Pictures of factories.
And there, above the fireplace, was a framed photograph of my father.
Samuel Bennett.
Smiling beside a bright yellow pickup truck.
I walked toward it.
"I've never seen this picture."
Arthur stood beside me.
"Your dad hated photographs. Took me three tries to convince him to smile."
I touched the frame.
"He looks happy."
"He was."
For a moment, Arthur seemed lost in memory.
Then he turned toward Rebecca.
"I suppose you're here because Margaret finally told the truth."
Rebecca nodded.
"She left Eleanor evidence."
Arthur sank into an armchair.
"About damn time."
I sat opposite him.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
He closed his eyes.
"Because we were cowards."
The honesty startled me.
Arthur looked directly at me.
"Your father designed the systems that made the original company valuable. Thomas knew it. I knew it. Everyone who worked there knew it."
"Then what happened?"
"Your father got sick."
I frowned.
My father had died after a sudden heart attack.
At least, that's what I'd always been told.
Arthur continued.
"He was exhausted. Working long hours. Worrying about debts. There were business disagreements."
"What disagreements?"
"Thomas wanted to expand faster. Samuel wanted to protect the company's obligations and employees."
"Did they fight?"
"Sometimes. But they respected each other."
Arthur reached for a folder.
"Before Samuel died, he asked me to witness a letter."
He handed it to me.
The paper was yellow with age.
My father's handwriting filled both sides.
I recognized the careful loops of his letters.
He had written to Thomas about protecting my future.
Not luxury.
Not power.
Security.
Education.
A chance to choose my own life.
I read a sentence aloud.
"'If anything happens to me, make sure Eleanor gets the opportunity to build something without having to ask permission.'"
My voice broke.
Arthur nodded.
"That was your father."
"Why didn't Thomas follow through?"
"He intended to. But he died three years before Samuel."
I looked up.
"What?"
Arthur frowned.
"Didn't anyone tell you?"
My heart began racing.
"Tell me what?"
"Thomas died in 1998. Samuel died in 2001. Your father had been trying to settle the ownership records after Thomas's death."
I stared.
"So Christopher was already involved?"
Arthur nodded.
"By then he was managing much of the business with Margaret."
Rebecca leaned forward.
"Did you retain any correspondence?"
Arthur smiled sadly.
"I kept everything."
He disappeared into another room.
When he returned, he carried a cardboard archive box.
Inside were letters, old financial reports, photographs, and meeting notes.
Rebecca began reviewing them.
I looked through photographs of my father at construction sites.
My father laughing with coworkers.
My father standing beside equipment he'd designed.
My father holding a birthday cake at an office party.
A man I thought I knew.
A life I'd never been allowed to understand.
Then I found a photograph taken in 1999.
Christopher stood beside my father.
He was twenty-eight.
I was twelve.
They were shaking hands.
I stared at the image.
"Why is Christopher in this picture?"
Arthur's expression changed.
"Because your father asked him to make a promise."
I looked up.
"What promise?"
Arthur swallowed.
"To look after you."
My chest tightened.
"Christopher was already working for the company?"
"He was. And your father trusted him."
I stared down at the smiling young man in the photograph.
The boy who would later become my husband.
The man who had used my father's inheritance to control me.
"Did my father know Christopher liked me?"
Arthur shook his head.
"Not romantically. You were a child. He simply believed Christopher was a decent young man who would make sure you and your mother were treated fairly."
I felt sick.
Christopher had known about my family long before he began courting me.
He'd met my father.
Promised to protect me.
Then years later, he had married me.
Had the whole relationship been planned?
Rebecca seemed to read my thoughts.
"Eleanor, don't jump to conclusions."
But Arthur had gone pale.
"There's something I need to tell you."
I looked at him.
"What?"
He swallowed.
"After your father died, Christopher visited me."
"When?"
"Three months before your wedding."
I could barely breathe.
"What did he want?"
Arthur looked at Rebecca.
"He wanted the original ownership records."
My stomach dropped.
"Did you give them to him?"
"Copies. He said Margaret needed them to finalize your family's interests."
I stared.
"And?"
Arthur's voice shook.
"Two weeks later, I received a letter from David Pierce claiming the Bennett interest had been legally extinguished."
Rebecca leaned forward.
"Do you still have that letter?"
Arthur nodded.
"It's in the box."
She found it.
Read it.
Then looked at me with an expression I couldn't understand.
"What is it?" I asked.
Rebecca turned the page toward me.
"The letter references a consent agreement supposedly signed by your mother."
I froze.
"My mother?"
"Yes."
"My mother had been dead for nearly four years before my wedding."
Arthur looked confused.
Rebecca's expression sharpened.
Then she pointed to the date.
The purported consent was signed seven months after my mother's death.
For several seconds, the room was silent.
Finally, Arthur whispered, "Dear God."
Rebecca placed the letter carefully into a protective sleeve.
"If that signature was fabricated, we may be looking at evidence of forgery."
I stared at Christopher's name on the document.
A signature.
A lie.
A dead woman's identity.
I suddenly remembered something else.
When Christopher proposed, he had given me a beautiful engagement ring and promised we would never have secrets.
I had believed every word.
Now I wondered whether his proposal had been another piece of paperwork disguised as love.
I stepped onto Arthur's porch because I couldn't breathe.
Cold wind swept through the trees.
I wrapped my arms around myself.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A woman's voice whispered:
"Mrs. Whitmore?"
"Yes?"
"My name is Natalie Brooks."
I frowned.
"Brooks?"
"I'm Madison's older sister."
My heart began pounding.
"Why are you calling me?"
There was a pause.
Then she said:
"Because Madison is in trouble, and I think your husband is going to let her take the blame for everything."
I leaned against the railing.
"What do you mean?"
Natalie's voice trembled.
"She found something in Christopher's private office."
"What?"
"An account statement."
I closed my eyes.
"Go on."
"The five million dollars he promised her isn't there."
I looked toward Rebecca through the window.
"Then where is it?"
Natalie began crying.
"That's the problem."
"What problem?"
"Christopher has been sending money to another woman."
I almost laughed.
Another woman.
Of course.
But Natalie wasn't finished.
"And Eleanor?"
"Yes?"
"The woman's name is listed as Victoria Bennett."
Every sound around me seemed to disappear.
Bennett.
My maiden name.
"Who is Victoria Bennett?"
Natalie hesitated.
Then she whispered:
"According to the private investigator Madison hired, Victoria claims she's your father's daughter."
I gripped the railing.
My father.
Another daughter.
May you like
Another secret.
And somewhere in Chicago, a woman I had never met was claiming the same inheritance Christopher had spent fifteen years hiding from me.
Related Stories
