Chapter 5: What Petra Knew
Petra Voss was younger than I had expected.
Late twenties, with dark circles under careful makeup and the particular stillness of someone who had been rehearsing this conversation for a long time.
She was already seated in Darcy's conference room when I arrived, both hands wrapped around a cup of tea she hadn't touched.
A baby bag sat on the chair beside her.
She had left the child with someone, then — she hadn't brought him.
I sat down across from her.
Darcy took the chair at the end of the table.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
"Thank you for coming," Petra said finally.
Her accent was faintly Eastern European, softened by years in the city.
"You asked to meet," I said.
"So talk."
She nodded.
Set the cup down.
Looked at her hands.
"I didn't know about you," she said.
"Not at first.
Julian told me he was separated.
That the marriage was over in everything but paperwork.
That his wife — that you — had agreed to wait until after his mother's birthday to file, because Fiona's health was fragile and the stress would be dangerous."
I said nothing.
I kept my face still.
"I believed him," Petra said.
"For almost two years, I believed him.
Then I got pregnant, and I asked him when the divorce would be finalized, and he kept moving the date.
Every time I pushed, there was a new reason.
His mother's health.
A business deal.
The wrong time."
"When did you find out the truth?" Darcy asked.
"Four months ago.
I found a statement.
A bank statement in his jacket pocket.
The account was in both your names, Sloan.
Yours and his.
Active.
With regular deposits from your salary." She paused.
"He wasn't separated.
He was never separated.
He was living with you and telling me he was sleeping on a friend's sofa."
The room was quiet.
"I confronted him," Petra said.
"He told me I was confused.
That the account was old, that it was complicated, that I was being irrational because of the pregnancy hormones." Her voice stayed flat, but her hands tightened around the cup.
"He is very good at making you feel like the problem is inside your own head."
"Yes," I said.
"He is."
She looked up at me then.
Something passed between us — not warmth exactly, but recognition.
Two women who had been managed by the same careful hands.
"I'm not here to ask for anything," Petra said.
"I want you to know that.
I have a solicitor.
I'm handling my own situation.
I'm here because Julian called me this morning, after you left the apartment."
Darcy leaned forward slightly.
"What did he say?"
"He told me to say nothing to anyone.
He said if I spoke to you or to your attorney, he would contest paternity.
He said he would make the process so long and so expensive that I would run out of money before it was resolved." She reached into the bag beside her and placed a phone on the table.
"He said all of this on a recorded call.
I recorded it because I had already decided I was going to this meeting, and I wanted proof of the threat."
Darcy looked at the phone.
Then at me.
"May we have a copy of that recording?" Darcy asked.
"That's why I brought it," Petra said.
I looked at this woman across the table — this woman Julian had used as a parallel life, a backup plan, a secret he thought was safely compartmentalized.
She hadn't come here for sympathy.
She had come here armed.
"He told me this morning that you had nothing," Petra said, looking at me directly.
"That your lawyer was bluffing and the asset freeze would be lifted by the end of the week.
He sounded very confident."
"He usually does," I said.
"I know." She picked up her tea finally, took a small sip, set it down.
"He also said something else.
He said that if you pushed forward with the divorce, he had something that would make you stop."
The air in the room shifted.
May you like
"He didn't say what it was," Petra added.
"But he said it like he meant it."
