Chapter 6 - Emily Harper
Emily Harper lived twenty minutes from me.
She was thirty-two.
Divorced.
And according to public records, she owned a townhouse Ryan had visited more than forty times in the previous year.
I didn’t need a private investigator to understand what that probably meant.
Still, I hired one.
His name was Cole Garrett.
Rebecca recommended him.
He had been a police detective before switching to civil investigations.
Within twenty-four hours, he gave me photographs.
Ryan walking into Emily’s townhouse.
Ryan carrying groceries.
Ryan kissing her outside a restaurant.
Ryan holding the hand of a little boy who looked about five.
I dropped the photograph.
“No.”
Cole didn’t speak.
Rebecca sat beside me.
“Do you know her?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve never seen her in my life.”
Cole slid another photograph across the table.
Emily.
Ryan.
The boy.
At a park.
They looked like a family.
A normal family.
The kind of picture Ryan and I had once imagined taking with our own children.
After my second miscarriage, Ryan had held me in bed while I cried.
“We have time,” he whispered.
Apparently he had spent some of that time with Emily.
“How old is the boy?”
“Five.”
Something in my stomach twisted.
Ryan and I had been married six years.
“Is he Ryan’s?”
“We don’t know.”
I stood abruptly.
“I need air.”
Outside Rebecca’s office, I leaned against the brick wall and tried to breathe.
Violence I could understand.
Fraud I could document.
But betrayal had a different texture.
It crawled under the skin.
My phone rang.
Emily Harper.
I stared at the name.
Cole must have contacted her.
I answered.
“Hello?”
A woman whispered, “Is this Claire?”
“Yes.”
Long silence.
Then:
“I think we need to meet.”
We met at a crowded bakery.
Emily looked nothing like the villain I had imagined.
She wore jeans.
No makeup.
Her eyes were swollen.
“I’m sorry.”
I sat down.
“Don’t.”
She nodded.
“I deserve that.”
“Is the boy Ryan’s?”
Her face changed.
“No.”
I exhaled.
“My ex-husband’s.”
“Then why does Ryan pay you every month?”
She looked down.
“He told me it was his money.”
“What for?”
She swallowed.
“Rent.”
I laughed once.
“Of course.”
“Claire—”
“How long?”
“Fourteen months.”
My throat tightened.
“Did you know he was married?”
“Yes.”
At least she didn’t insult me with another lie.
“He told me you were separated.”
“We weren’t.”
“I know that now.”
“You didn’t check?”
“I believed him.”
That sentence hit harder than I expected.
Because I had believed him too.
“What did he tell you about me?”
“That you lived separately in the same house because of finances. That the divorce would be final once the family company stabilized.”
I looked away.
She continued.
“He said his mother hated you and made everything difficult.”
“That part was true.”
Emily almost smiled.
Then she started crying.
“I ended it two weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“He asked me to lie.”
“About what?”
She pulled out her phone.
“He wanted me to say that payments to me were for marketing consulting.”
My attention sharpened.
“Why?”
“He said his accountant was reviewing transfers.”
Ryan had already been preparing for discovery.
“What did you say?”
“No.”
Emily opened a message thread.
Ryan:
Please, Em. It’s just paperwork.
Emily:
I’m not committing fraud for you.
Ryan:
You’ve taken the money for a year.
Emily:
You told me it was yours.
Ryan:
It will become a problem if Claire finds out.
Emily:
Then tell your wife.
Ryan:
You don’t understand her.
Emily:
I understand that she exists.
I stared at the screen.
Emily slid the phone toward me.
“You can have everything.”
“Why?”
“Because yesterday Ryan showed up at my house.”
My skin went cold.
“What happened?”
“He was panicking.”
“What did he want?”
“He asked me to take my son and leave town for a while.”
“Why?”
“He said his mother had been arrested and the police were digging into the company.”
Emily wiped her eyes.
“Then he said something strange.”
“What?”
“He said if Diane thought I knew too much, she might come looking for me.”
Silence stretched between us.
I leaned forward.
“Emily, what do you know?”
“Nothing.”
“Think.”
She did.
Then her face went pale.
“Three months ago, Diane came to my house.”
I stared at her.
“She knew about you?”
“She knew everything.”
Of course she did.
“What did she say?”
Emily looked terrified now.
“She told me Ryan would never leave you.”
“Why?”
“She said he couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t?”
“She said your marriage was the only thing standing between their family and bankruptcy.”
I felt cold.
“That makes no sense.”
“I asked her the same thing.”
“And?”
Emily’s voice dropped.
“She said, ‘If Claire leaves before the acquisition, we lose the house, the company, and Ryan’s freedom.’”
I froze.
“Ryan’s freedom?”
Emily nodded.
“Then she told me something else.”
May you like
“What?”
“She said you had no idea what your husband had done the night your father died.”
