Chapter 2 - THE TESTI watched the fourteen-minute video eleven times before sunrise.
Each time, I noticed something new.
The first time, I heard Daniel say, “Do whatever it takes.”
The second time, I noticed him looking toward Rachel’s phone after Evelyn struck Sophie.
The third time, I saw his right hand disappear beneath the table.
He wasn’t reaching for Sophie.
He was checking his own phone.
The fourth time, I heard a vibration through Rachel’s recording.
At 12:37 a.m., I stopped replaying the slap and began replaying everything that happened before it.
“What test?” my mother asked.
She sat across from me in the small hotel suite, wearing the robe the hotel provided.
Sophie was asleep between pillows on the bed behind us.
“I don’t know.”
“You heard Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
“What test could she mean?”
I knew.
I just didn’t want to say it.
Three weeks earlier, Daniel had mentioned genetic testing.
Not casually.
Not exactly.
We had been eating dinner when he asked whether I had ever taken one of those ancestry DNA tests.
I said no.
He asked if anyone in my family had.
I told him my brother had done one years ago.
Then Daniel asked if I would ever consider having Sophie tested.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Genetic screening. Health risks. Family history.”
I had laughed.
Sophie’s pediatrician had never recommended anything beyond ordinary developmental monitoring.
Daniel had become annoyed.
“You’re strangely defensive.”
“I’m not defensive. I’m asking why.”
He dropped the subject.
Or I thought he had.
A week later, Evelyn brought it up.
Then Daniel’s sister.
Then, two days before Sophie’s birthday, Daniel left a brochure on our kitchen counter for a private genetic laboratory.
That was when I finally asked him what was going on.
He claimed his mother was worried because Sophie was small for her age and had mild speech delays.
I told him a pediatrician—not Evelyn—could decide whether testing was medically appropriate.
Daniel called me controlling.
Now I understood the argument had been part of something larger.
“What if it wasn’t a medical test?” I whispered.
My mother stared at me.
“What are you thinking?”
“Paternity.”
The word hung between us.
My mother’s face changed.
“Daniel thinks Sophie isn’t his?”
“I don’t know.”
But another possibility was worse.
Maybe Daniel knew she was his.
Maybe he needed a test for another reason.
I picked up my phone and searched my messages.
Three months earlier, Daniel had become obsessed with refinancing our house.
He owned a small commercial construction company called Bennett Urban Development.
Or, technically, he owned seventy percent.
Evelyn owned the remaining thirty.
Daniel claimed business was excellent.
Yet he had started asking strange questions about my inheritance.
My grandfather had left me a trust that became fully accessible when I turned thirty-five.
That birthday was seven months away.
The trust contained investments and a property my grandfather purchased decades earlier.
Daniel had always known about it.
Recently, though, he had begun asking whether spouses could become beneficiaries.
Then he asked whether assets automatically passed to Sophie.
Then he asked what happened if a beneficiary died before adulthood.
I had laughed at the time.
Now I felt sick.
My mother saw my expression.
“What?”
“I need my laptop.”
At 1:24 a.m., I logged into our joint financial account.
Nothing looked unusual.
Then I checked the home-equity line.
Balance: $187,430.
I stopped breathing.
We had opened the credit line when we renovated the kitchen.
The balance was supposed to be zero.
“Mom.”
She came around the table.
I showed her.
“Did you authorize this?”
“No.”
Transfers had been made over eight months.
All to Bennett Urban Development.
$25,000.
$32,000.
$19,800.
$40,000.
$70,630.
My signature appeared on the authorization forms.
Except I had never signed them.
My mother whispered, “Call the bank.”
“Not yet.”
“Claire—”
“If Daniel forged my signature, I need to know everything before he realizes I know.”
That was the first smart decision I made that night.
The second was calling Rachel.
She answered on the first ring.
“I’ve been waiting.”
“Why were you recording?”
Silence.
“Rachel?”
“Because Daniel asked me to.”
My stomach dropped.
“He asked you?”
“He said you had been acting erratic. He told me he was worried you’d cause a scene at Sophie’s birthday.”
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Did he say why?”
“He said he might need proof for a lawyer.”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Rachel, did Daniel ever mention a DNA test?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked if I knew anyone who could get a paternity test done without the mother’s permission.”
My hands began shaking.
“Why?”
“I asked the same thing.”
“And?”
“He said he needed to settle something before filing for custody.”
Custody.
There it was.
Not divorce.
Custody.
He had been building a case.
“He wanted me filmed losing control.”
“I think so.”
Rachel started crying.
“I swear I didn’t know Evelyn was going to hit Sophie. Claire, if I had known—”
“I believe you.”
“I should have stopped her.”
“So should Daniel.”
That sentence silenced both of us.
“Rachel, send me the original file. Don’t edit it. Don’t upload it anywhere.”
“I already backed it up.”
“Good.”
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something else.”
I looked at my mother.
“What?”
“After you left, Daniel and Evelyn argued in the hallway.”
“About me?”
“No.”
Rachel lowered her voice.
“About the test.”
“What did they say?”
“I only heard part of it. Evelyn said, ‘You promised me she would agree once she knew the truth.’”
“What truth?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what did Daniel say?”
Rachel hesitated.
“He said it didn’t matter anymore because after tonight, he could get a judge to order it.”
A chill moved down my arms.
Then Rachel added:
“Claire, Evelyn said one more thing.”
“What?”
“She told Daniel that if the results were what she expected, your marriage would be the least of his problems.”
I looked toward Sophie sleeping peacefully on the bed.
“What did she expect?”
“I don’t know.”
Neither did I.
But by sunrise, I had decided one thing.
Daniel wanted a genetic test badly enough to use his mother and my two-year-old daughter as bait.
May you like
I was going to find out why.
And he wasn’t going to know I was looking.
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