Chapter 6: What Andrew Found in the Files
We met at a coffee shop in Cambridge, away from Rosewood, away from the Whitmore offices, away from anywhere either of our families might appear.
Andrew was already there when I arrived.
He had changed out of the wedding suit.
He was wearing a grey sweater and looked like he hadn't slept, but his eyes were clear and focused in the way of someone who had spent the night deciding things rather than grieving them.
He stood when he saw me.
"Thank you for coming."
"Of course."
We sat.
He ordered coffee.
I ordered tea.
Neither of us touched them for a while.
"I heard from Diane Marsh last night," I said.
Something shifted in his expression.
"She called you?"
"She was at the wedding.
She texted me when I was leaving." I slid my phone across the table with Diane's message thread open.
"She said she couldn't prove it alone.
But she thought you could."
Andrew read the messages slowly.
His jaw tightened once, near the middle, then settled.
He set the phone down.
"Gerald Foss pulled out of the Harbor Point deal in September.
I spent two months trying to understand why.
He told me he'd received a risk analysis that changed his assessment.
I asked to see it.
He said his lawyers had advised him not to share it."
"Did you ever see the document?"
"Not until this morning." He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and placed a folded paper on the table between us.
"I called Gerald at six a.m.
I told him what happened last night.
I told him I needed to see the document.
He emailed it within the hour."
I looked at the paper but didn't touch it.
"What does it show?"
"It's a financial projection for Harbor Point.
My numbers, my formatting, my letterhead.
But the figures on pages four and seven have been changed.
The projected return is listed as negative.
The liability column is inflated by about thirty percent." He paused.
"No one on my team produced this version.
I've already checked with my CFO."
"Rachel had access to your office in February," I said.
"Diane gave her your schedule."
"I know." He picked up his coffee.
Set it down without drinking.
"What I don't understand is why.
The deal would have taken me to Providence for eighteen months.
That's not—" He stopped.
"She didn't want you distracted," I said.
"She wanted the wedding locked in before anything changed."
He looked at me across the table.
"She sabotaged a four-million-dollar deal to keep me on schedule."
"That's what Diane believes."
He was quiet for a moment.
A couple at the next table laughed at something.
The sound was very ordinary and very far away.
"I need to ask you something," Andrew said.
"And I need you to answer honestly."
"Okay."
"Did you know?
Before last night.
Did you know any of this?"
"No," I said.
"I knew Rachel was capable of cruelty.
I didn't know the scale of it."
He nodded slowly.
"She called me this morning.
Before I called Gerald."
"What did she say?"
"She said Chloe had misunderstood what she saw.
She said the man in the video was a cousin.
She said she could explain everything if I would just give her an hour." He looked at his hands.
"She also said that if I pursued this publicly, she would tell people that I had been emotionally controlling throughout our relationship.
That I had isolated her.
That the affair was a response to that."
I felt something cold move through me.
"She said that this morning."
"At five fifty-eight a.m." He looked up.
"She had the whole story ready.
The whole counter-story.
Before I'd even had coffee."
"She's been building it since she walked out of that ballroom," I said.
"I know." He reached into his jacket again and placed a second document on the table.
"Which is why I had my attorney draft this at seven a.m."
It was a letter.
Formal, precise, addressed to Gerald Foss's legal team.
It referenced the altered document.
It requested a full forensic review of the Harbor Point files.
It named Rachel Bennett as a person of interest in the unauthorized access and alteration of proprietary financial records.
At the bottom, Andrew had already signed it.
"I'm not doing this because of last night," he said.
"I'm doing this because she took something from me and from Gerald and from the people who would have worked on that project.
And because if I don't, she'll do it to someone else."
I looked at the letter.
Then at him.
"What do you need from me?" I said.
"Diane's notes.
The dates.
Anything she sent you." He paused.
"And I'd like to speak with Chloe, if you're willing.
Not for the legal matter.
Just—" He stopped.
"She did something last night that I've been thinking about all morning.
She saw something wrong and she didn't look away from it.
She's eight years old.
I'd like her to know that mattered."
My throat tightened unexpectedly.
"I'll ask her," I said.
"She'll say yes."
Andrew nodded.
He finally picked up his coffee and drank.
"Rachel's going to fight this," I said.
"I know."
"She'll say it's my fault.
That I turned you against her.
That Chloe was coached."
"I know that too." He looked at me steadily.
"Are you prepared for that?"
I thought about thirty-four years of staying quiet.
Of deleted drafts.
Of one more day, one more event, one more family occasion survived in silence.
"Yes," I said.
"I think I've been preparing for it for a long time."
Outside the coffee shop window, Cambridge moved through its ordinary morning.
A woman walked a dog.
A delivery truck idled at the corner.
Andrew's phone buzzed on the table.
He looked at the screen.
His expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes did.
He turned the phone so I could see it.
It was a text from Rachel.
*I know about the conversation you had with Claire this morning.
You need to stop this now.
May you like
I have things I can say about your family too.
Don't make me.*
