Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE BLUE COATAnna told me not to contact Vanessa.
Naturally, that made me want to contact Vanessa immediately.
“What if she knows something about the company?” I asked.
“She may,” Anna said.
“What if Daniel is hiding assets through her?”
“He may be.”
“What if they’re having an affair?”
Anna looked at me across her desk.
“That might hurt. It may matter in your marriage. But right now, the larger legal issue is potential fraud.”
I hated that she was right.
I hated even more that an affair seemed almost ordinary compared with everything else.
The ownership transfer document was devastating if genuine.
Fortunately, my corporate attorney had never received it.
Unfortunately, Daniel had apparently used it to support loan applications through Mercer Strategic Holdings.
Anna brought in a forensic accountant named Victor Ramos.
Victor was fifty, soft-spoken, and visibly delighted by complicated financial crimes.
“This is sloppy,” he said after examining the records.
“Sloppy?”
“Arrogant people usually become sloppy.”
For the first time in days, I heard good news.
He discovered Daniel had been using money from Mercer Strategic Holdings to make payments on a condominium.
Not our house.
A condominium in River North.
The owner of record?
Vanessa Cole.
“Maybe she’s his mistress,” Rachel said.
“Maybe she’s part of the scheme,” Victor replied.
He found another irregularity.
A $210,000 line of credit had been opened using projected income from my company.
I had not approved it.
My purported signature appeared on the guarantee.
Another signature taken from paperwork Daniel had asked me to sign.
The pattern was becoming obvious.
Daniel had spent years making me feel incompetent about finances while positioning himself between me and every financial decision.
He had not simply controlled the money.
He had created a system where I stopped asking questions.
That realization embarrassed me.
Anna noticed.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Taking responsibility for someone else deceiving you.”
“I signed things without reading.”
“You trusted your spouse.”
“That was stupid.”
“No. Fraud requires trust to work.”
I looked down.
“Claire, hold him responsible for the lie. Don’t hold yourself responsible for believing the person who promised not to lie to you.”
Two days later, Vanessa contacted me.
She called my studio.
My receptionist transferred the call before realizing who she was.
“Claire?”
Her voice was low and nervous.
“Yes.”
“This is Vanessa Cole.”
I stood so quickly my rib screamed.
“What do you want?”
“I think we need to talk.”
“My attorney told me not to contact you.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Daniel told me.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“You’re still speaking to him?”
A pause.
Then:
“I’m afraid of him.”
That changed everything.
We met with Anna present.
Vanessa arrived wearing a blue wool coat, no makeup, and an expression I recognized immediately.
The same expression I had seen in my bathroom mirror for years.
Careful.
Watchful.
She sat down across from us.
“I’m not Daniel’s mistress.”
I said nothing.
She swallowed.
“I was.”
There it was.
The pain came, but strangely muted.
Perhaps there are only so many times your heart can be shocked in one week.
“How long?”
“Eight months.”
I looked at Anna.
She remained neutral.
Vanessa continued.
“I met him through work. My company hired Mercer Strategic for a consulting project.”
“What does his company actually do?”
“Mostly financial restructuring for small firms.”
“My money funds it.”
Vanessa’s eyes lowered.
“I know that now.”
“Did you know then?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“He told me you were separated.”
Of course he did.
“He said you lived together for financial reasons. He said you hadn’t been a couple for years.”
“Did you ever come to my house?”
“No.”
“Meet Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
“My mother-in-law knew?”
Vanessa’s face twisted.
“She encouraged it.”
Of course she did.
I laughed once.
A short, ugly sound.
“Did she know Daniel was married to me?”
“Yes.”
Anna leaned forward.
“What made you end the relationship?”
Vanessa’s hands clenched around each other.
“He got controlling.”
I stopped breathing.
“What did he do?”
“At first, little things. He wanted to know where I was. Who I talked to. Then he started criticizing my clothes. My friends.”
The script.
Exactly the same script.
“I tried to end it in May.”
“What happened?”
“He threatened to tell my employer I had stolen client information.”
“Had you?”
“No.”
“He also controlled the lease on my condo.”
Victor had found those payments.
“He told me if I left him, I’d lose the apartment and my job.”
Anna asked, “Why come forward now?”
Vanessa looked at me.
“Because Monday night he came to my apartment.”
The night after the fall.
“What did he say?”
“He was furious.”
My skin prickled.
“He said you had turned his mother into a criminal.”
I stared at her.
“He said you were going to ruin everything unless someone made you understand what you were risking.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa reached into her purse.
She removed her phone.
“I recorded part of it.”
Anna’s head snapped up.
“Was Daniel aware?”
“No.”
“Depending on state recording laws, we’ll need to determine admissibility. Let me hear it.”
Vanessa played the recording.
Daniel’s voice filled the room.
My husband.
Calm at first.
Then sharper.
Claire is emotional. She’ll calm down.
Vanessa:
She was pushed down stairs.
Daniel:
You don’t know what happened.
Your mother pushed her.
Then a thump.
Vanessa’s breathing.
Daniel again:
Be very careful about choosing sides here.
Vanessa stopped the recording.
I stared at the phone.
“What happened after that?”
“He took my keys.”
“What?”
“He said the apartment belonged to his company.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Vanessa hesitated.
Then pushed up her sleeve.
Finger-shaped bruises circled her wrist.
My stomach turned.
Daniel had left my hospital room and gone directly to another woman.
Not for comfort.
For control.
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
I surprised myself.
“For what?”
“For sleeping with your husband.”
I could have hated her.
Part of me wanted to.
But looking at those bruises, I saw the machinery.
Daniel chose women he believed he could manage.
Then taught them to blame themselves.
“You didn’t push me down the stairs,” I said.
“No.”
“You didn’t steal from my company?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll deal with the rest later.”
Vanessa nodded, crying silently.
She had brought records.
Emails.
Messages.
Copies of documents Daniel had left in her apartment.
One caught Anna’s attention.
It was a draft agreement involving the sale of Claire Holden Interiors to an investment group.
My company.
Being sold.
Without my knowledge.
The proposed sale price was $3.8 million.
My heart nearly stopped.
“He was selling my company?”
“Trying to,” Vanessa said.
Anna scanned the pages.
“He couldn’t complete this without Claire’s consent.”
Vanessa looked uneasy.
“He thought he could.”
“Why?”
“He said he already had her signature.”
The room went silent.
Anna’s face became cold.
“Did he say how?”
“No. But he laughed when I asked.”
Victor began reviewing the documents.
The next hour revealed the true scale of Daniel’s plan.
He had been telling investors that my company was facing financial instability.
He intended to force a distressed sale.
Mercer Strategic would receive a consulting fee.
A separate entity would acquire a significant interest.
Daniel would profit.
Evelyn would profit.
And I would be left believing my business had failed.
The cruelty of it stunned me more than the money.
He knew what my company meant to me.
I had built it after my mother died.
The first office furniture had been purchased with the small inheritance she left me.
Daniel had watched me work nights for years.
He had celebrated when I hired my first employee.
At least I thought he had celebrated.
Now I wondered whether he had only been calculating.
Then Victor found a calendar entry among the documents.
A meeting scheduled for the following Friday.
Final acquisition review.
Three days away.
Daniel apparently believed he still had time to sell the company.
Anna smiled for the first time since I hired her.
Not a warm smile.
A lawyer’s smile.
“Good.”
I stared at her.
“What’s good about this?”
“He doesn’t know exactly what we know.”
My pulse quickened.
“What are you thinking?”
“We let him go to the meeting.”
Rachel looked alarmed.
“Why?”
Anna closed the file.
“Because Daniel believes Claire is frightened, injured, and too confused to fight.”
She looked directly at me.
“We’re going to allow him to believe that for seventy-two more hours.”
Then she turned to Victor.
“Find out everyone attending that meeting.”
To Vanessa:
“Save every message.”
And finally to me:
“Do not contact Daniel.”
My phone vibrated at that exact moment.
His name appeared.
A text.
We can still fix our marriage. Come home and stop letting strangers poison you against me.
I stared at it.
The old Claire would have wondered whether he meant it.
May you like
The new Claire took a screenshot.
Then handed the phone to my attorney.
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