Chapter 3: What the Phone Already Knew
Julian watched Clara's hand close around the phone.
"Who was that?" he said.
"None of your business."
"You just threatened my family with evidence you claim to have.
Everything in this room is my business."
Clara turned away, pressing the phone against her thigh.
"I think you should leave."
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what you think you have on me."
Elena shifted Aria to her other shoulder, still watching Julian with that careful, measuring look.
She hadn't said a word since her question went unanswered.
That silence was louder than anything Clara had said.
Julian turned to face his wife.
"There's nothing.
She's bluffing."
"Then answer me," Elena said.
"What photos?"
"Elena—"
"Julian." Her voice didn't rise.
It never did when she was serious.
"I am asking you one time."
He ran a hand through his hair.
"About two years ago, Clara found out I'd been talking to someone.
A woman from work.
It wasn't what she's making it sound like."
Elena's expression didn't change.
"What was it?"
"We had lunch.
A few times.
Clara saw us once and decided it was something it wasn't.
She's been sitting on that ever since, waiting for a moment to use it."
Clara spun back around.
"Lunch." She laughed, short and sharp.
"Is that what you're calling it?"
"That's what it was."
"I have the texts, Julian.
The ones where she called you at eleven at night.
The ones where you told her Elena was working late and the house was quiet." Clara's chin lifted.
"You want to explain those to your wife?
Go ahead.
I'll wait."
The room contracted.
Chloe stood up from the sofa quietly, took Maya by the wrist, and guided her toward the hallway.
Neither girl looked back.
They had seen enough of their mother's weapons to know when one was about to fire.
Elena set Aria down gently on the armchair, tucking a cushion behind her so she wouldn't slide.
Then she straightened and looked at Julian.
"Is there more than lunch?"
Julian's jaw worked.
"It got complicated.
For a few weeks.
Then I ended it.
That was almost two years ago."
The word landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
Elena didn't move.
She didn't cry.
She picked up her briefcase from the floor where she'd dropped it, set it on the sofa, and unclipped the latch with two precise clicks.
"Elena—"
"I'm thinking," she said quietly.
"Don't talk to me for a moment."
Clara watched this with visible satisfaction.
"I told you I had something."
"You filmed a child being h*rt," Elena said, without looking up from her briefcase.
"Whatever you think you have on my husband does not change what you did to my daughter today.
Those are two separate things.
And I will deal with both of them."
Clara's smile thinned.
"You're a lawyer.
You know what I can do with those texts."
"I know exactly what you can do with them." Elena finally looked up.
"I also know what I can do with a recorded video of you restraining and cutting a nine-year-old's hair while she begged you to stop.
Would you like to compare notes?"
Clara's mouth opened.
Then closed.
"I didn't think so," Elena said.
Julian looked at his wife.
She wasn't looking at him.
She was looking at Clara with the focused stillness of someone who had already decided the outcome and was simply waiting for the other side to realize it.
Clara took one step forward.
"You don't scare me."
"I'm not trying to scare you." Elena closed her briefcase.
"I'm telling you what's coming.
There's a difference."
The phone in Clara's hand buzzed again.
This time she didn't look at it.
But her knuckles went white around the case.
Julian noticed.
"That's the second time.
Same person?"
Clara said nothing.
"Who keeps calling you, Clara?"
She turned toward the window.
Outside, the late afternoon light was going grey.
"It doesn't matter," she said.
But her voice had changed.
The edge was gone.
What was left underneath sounded almost like someone trying not to panic.
May you like
Julian took one step toward her.
"What have you done?"
