Chapter 2
I watched him.
“And you knew about them?”
“Not all of them. Not until after he died.”
“What did you do?”
“At first? Nothing.”
The admission seemed difficult.
“I told myself the past was the past. That I could take what was legitimate, separate it from everything else, and build something different.”
I thought about the developments Nicholas had begun during our marriage.
Apartment buildings.
Restaurants.
A warehouse conversion into artists’ studios.
“You always said you wanted out.”
“I did.”
“Then why weren’t you?”
“Because wanting something and being free to choose it aren’t always the same.”
There was no drama in his voice.
Just disappointment.
Mostly, I realized, in himself.
Nicholas continued.
“About a year ago, I found a second set of records.”
“Where?”
“In my father’s old office. Behind a cabinet nobody had moved in twenty years.”
I almost smiled despite myself.
“That sounds suspiciously convenient.”
“It would, except it took three contractors and a broken pipe to find it.”
The hint of humor disappeared as quickly as it came.
“The records connected money from several companies to public contracts. Some transactions were old. Some weren’t.”
“And the warehouse?”
“Held archived documents for one of those companies.”
My stomach tightened.
“The warehouse that exploded.”
“Yes.”
“Was the explosion an accident?”
Nicholas hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
It was the first answer he had given that sounded entirely unguarded.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
I studied him.
The Nicholas I remembered hated saying those words.
“You really have changed.”
His mouth lifted faintly.
“I’ve had time.”
I did not smile.
He looked down.
“Two weeks before the warehouse fire, I contacted a federal attorney through someone I trusted.”
I stared at him.
“You were cooperating?”
“I was considering it.”
“Considering?”
“I had one foot in both lives, Claire. I kept telling myself I could protect my mother, protect you, protect the employees who depended on our companies, and still walk into an office with everything I knew.”
“Could you?”
“No.”
The simplicity of the answer surprised me.
“So what happened?”
“Someone found out I had the records.”
“Who?”
“That is the part I still don’t know.”
I folded my arms.
Nicholas glanced toward the hallway.
“There’s a box in the study.”
He stood.
I followed him.
The study contained a desk and several banker’s boxes. Nicholas opened the smallest.
Inside were folders labeled with dates and names.
He handed me one.
I opened it.
Copies of corporate documents.
Bank records.
Emails.
Most meant nothing to me.
Then I saw a familiar name.
Daniel Moretti.
Nicholas’s cousin.
I looked up.
“Daniel?”
“Keep reading.”
Daniel had always been the easiest Moretti to like.
He brought ridiculous desserts to Sunday dinner and pretended every cake had been made by a mysterious French chef, even when the grocery-store label was still stuck underneath.
After Nicholas’s death, Daniel had checked on me every few days.
He fixed a leaking faucet.
He drove Sofia to doctor’s appointments.
He was the person who had told me, gently, that Nicholas’s remains could not be recovered.
My hands became cold again.
“What is this?”
“Transfers authorized through a company Daniel manages.”
“Does that mean he knew?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I won’t accuse him without proof.”
That, somehow, frightened me less than certainty would have.
I turned another page.
Payments.
Dates.
A series of deposits into an account belonging to a consulting firm.
“Who owns this?”
“We couldn’t identify the real owner.”
“We?”
“The attorney I contacted and two investigators.”
“And they helped you fake your death?”
Nicholas was silent.
My head rose.
“Nicholas.”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I did.”
“With whose help?”
“Three people.”
“Names.”
“One was my attorney, Anthony Vale.”
I knew Anthony.
He had handed me Nicholas’s death certificate.
My stomach twisted.
“Anthony looked me in the eye at your funeral.”
“I know.”
“He hugged me.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Nicholas went quiet.
I pressed my fingers to my forehead.
“Who else?”
“Dr. Harris, who had access to the emergency records.”
“And?”
He hesitated.
“My mother.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“Claire—”
“No.”
“Sofia knew I was alive.”
“She sat beside me at your funeral.”
“I know.”
“She cried.”
“She was crying.”
“About what?”
“Losing me in every way that mattered.”
I closed the folder.
My hands shook.
“She knew?”
“She found out the morning after the fire. I went to her because I needed somewhere no one would expect me to stay.”
“And she agreed?”
“Not immediately.”
I thought of Sofia Moretti.
Her silver hair.
Her careful hands.
The woman who had called me daughter before Nicholas and I were even engaged.
The woman who came to my house every Thursday after he died because she said neither of us should eat alone.
“She never told me.”
“I asked her not to.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
“Why would she agree?”
“Because someone had been following her.”
The anger inside me faltered.
“What?”
“Two days before the fire, she noticed the same car outside her house three times.”
“Did anything happen?”
“No. Nobody approached her. Nobody threatened her.”
“Then maybe it was nothing.”
“Maybe.”
Nicholas looked toward the rain-darkened window.
“But she was frightened. And when the warehouse burned, I believed whoever had discovered the records might start watching everyone close to me.”
“So you disappeared.”
“I was already inside the building when the fire started.”
My breath caught.
He continued quickly, quietly.
“There was smoke in the east corridor. I got out through a loading entrance. By the time I reached the river road, the news had already reported that I was believed to be inside.”
“And you saw an opportunity.”
“Yes.”
The word sounded terrible between us.
“You let the world make the mistake for you.”
“Yes.”
“You let me make it too.”
His gaze held mine.
“Yes.”
I walked away from the desk.
The room felt too small.
“Why come back now?”
“Because the investigation stalled.”
I turned.
“That doesn’t explain why you came back.”
May you like
“No.”
“Then explain.”
