Chapter 4: The Number I Didn't Recognize
I didn't sleep.
I put Chloe to bed at half past ten, sat on the edge of her mattress until her breathing slowed, then went to the kitchen and made tea I didn't drink.
The text sat on my phone screen.
*We need to talk.
Tonight.
It's about Rachel — and it's not just the affair.*
At eleven forty-three, I typed back: *Who is this?*
The reply came in under a minute.
*My name is Diane Marsh.
I was Andrew's assistant for three years.
I left his company four months ago.
I know what Rachel did.
Not just the affair.
The other thing.
Please call me.*
I read it twice.
Then I called.
She picked up on the first ring.
"Thank you," she said immediately.
"I wasn't sure you would."
"What other thing?" I said.
A pause.
"Is your daughter asleep?"
"Yes."
"Okay." Another pause, shorter.
"Eight months ago, Rachel came to Andrew's office.
She told him she wanted to surprise him — she knew his schedule, she'd asked me for it.
I gave it to her.
I didn't think anything of it.
She was his fiancée."
"Okay."
"While she was there, she went through his files.
I didn't see it happen.
But three weeks later, Andrew's silent business partner — a man named Gerald Foss — pulled out of a development deal worth about four million dollars.
He said he'd received information that changed his confidence in the project."
I set down the mug.
"What kind of information?"
"Financial projections that had been altered.
Made to look worse than they were.
The deal collapsed.
Andrew lost the contract.
He never found out how Gerald got those numbers."
"But you think Rachel—"
"I know Rachel," Diane said.
"I watched her in that office.
I watched how she moved through it.
She wasn't there to surprise Andrew.
She was looking for something."
"Why would she want the deal to fail?"
"Because Gerald Foss was going to bring in a co-investor.
Someone who would have taken Andrew's attention and his capital out of New England for two years, minimum." A beat.
"Rachel didn't want Andrew distracted.
She wanted the wedding on schedule.
She wanted the ring on her finger before anything changed."
I stood up and walked to the window.
The street outside was empty and quiet.
"You left four months ago," I said.
"Why didn't you say anything before tonight?"
"Because I couldn't prove it.
I still can't prove it alone." Her voice was careful.
"But Andrew can.
If he looks at the right files.
If he asks Gerald Foss the right questions.
If someone tells him where to look."
"Why are you telling me?"
"Because I saw what happened tonight," she said.
"I was a guest.
A plus-one.
I was near the back." A pause.
"And because your daughter did something tonight that I didn't have the courage to do for four months."
I didn't answer right away.
Outside, a car passed slowly and turned the corner.
"What do you want me to do with this?" I said.
"Talk to Andrew.
Before Rachel does.
She's going to spend tonight building a story.
She's very good at that."
"I know," I said.
"She's been doing it our whole lives."
We stayed on the line a moment longer.
Then Diane gave me her email address and said she would send me everything she had — notes, dates, the name of the file she believed Rachel had accessed.
After we hung up, I sat at the kitchen table for a long time.
I thought about Rachel at fourteen, crying to our mother that I had broken her bracelet when I hadn't touched it.
I thought about Rachel at twenty-two, telling her friends at a dinner party that I had failed my teaching certification twice when I had passed on the first attempt.
Small lies.
Careful lies.
Lies that were always just believable enough.
My phone buzzed again.
A different number this time.
I looked at the screen.
It was Rachel.
*Don't do anything stupid, Claire.
You don't understand what you've started.
Call me back.*
I turned the phone face-down on the table.
In the morning, I was going to need to make a decision.
Whether to contact Andrew.
Whether to forward Diane's information.
Whether to step further into something that had already cost this family more than one evening.
But that night, I sat in my quiet kitchen in my two-bedroom apartment outside Boston, and I let myself feel something I hadn't expected.
Not anger.
Not satisfaction.
Relief.
Because for the first time in thirty-four years, I hadn't been the one keeping Rachel's secret.
She had kept it herself.
And it had found its own way out.
My phone lit up again.
Rachel, calling this time.
I watched it ring.
I let it go to voicemail.
And then, just before I turned off the kitchen light, a new message appeared — not from Rachel, not from Diane.
From our mother.
*I need to tell you something about the night your father left.
May you like
I should have told you years ago.
I'm sorry it took this long.*
