Chapter 4: Richard Makes His Move
Patricia's office was on the fourteenth floor.
The windows faced east.
By the time Richard gave up waiting downstairs and left, the morning light had shifted from pale gold to flat white, and we had finished reviewing the first two years of falsified expense records.
He called my mobile at 10:23.
I put the phone face-down on Patricia's desk and kept reading.
He called again at 10:31.
Then at 10:44.
At 10:51, a text arrived.
*Claire.
I need five minutes.
Please.
This isn't what you think it is.
There are things Daniel hasn't told you.
Things you need to know before this goes any further.
Please call me back.*
Patricia read it over my shoulder.
"Classic deflection.
He's going to try to reframe himself as a source, not a target."
"I know how he thinks," I said.
"He's been Daniel's fixer for fifteen years."
"Then he knows how much trouble he's in."
"He knows exactly how much trouble he's in.
That's why he's texting me instead of calling his own lawyer."
I set the phone aside.
We kept working.
At noon, I stepped out of the building to get lunch.
Richard was standing on the pavement across the street.
He looked terrible.
He had not shaved.
His jacket was the same one he'd been wearing in the photograph — I recognized the cut of it — and he was holding a coffee cup he clearly hadn't been drinking from.
He crossed the street when he saw me.
"Claire.
Please.
Just hear me out."
I kept walking.
"Richard, I have nothing to say to you."
He fell into step beside me.
"I know what this looks like.
I know.
But Daniel — Daniel isn't who you think he is either.
He's been moving money, Claire.
Not just hiding the affair.
Moving money out of the company.
Real money.
The kind that doesn't come back."
I stopped.
Not because I was surprised.
Because I wanted to see his face when he said the next part.
"How much?" I said.
He glanced around the pavement.
"Can we go somewhere?"
"No.
How much, Richard?"
He lowered his voice.
"Over the last eighteen months — close to two million.
Through a series of vendor accounts that don't exist.
I found it three months ago.
I confronted him.
He told me to stay quiet and he'd make sure Vanessa and I were taken care of." He stopped.
Swallowed.
"I should have come to you then.
I know that."
I looked at him for a long moment.
A man who had stood at the altar beside my husband.
Who had sat at my dinner table more times than I could count.
Who had watched me pour wine and clear plates and smile at Daniel's jokes for eleven years.
"You didn't come to me then," I said.
"You came to me now, when you realized I already had the photograph."
His jaw tightened.
"Claire—"
"You're not a witness, Richard.
You're a participant.
You signed those expense reports.
Your name is on four of the vendor authorizations." I started walking again.
"If you want to cooperate with my attorney, call her office.
Her number is on the firm's website.
Tell her I said you'd be in touch."
"Claire, wait—"
"Don't follow me," I said.
"And don't contact me again directly.
The next time you do, I'll add it to the file."
He didn't follow me.
I bought a sandwich from a place two blocks away and ate it standing at the counter, looking out at the street.
My hands were steady.
That surprised me, a little.
Not the steadiness itself — I had been steady for months.
What surprised me was how quiet it felt.
How ordinary.
I was eating a sandwich.
The world was continuing.
And somewhere across the city, two men who had each believed, in their different ways, that I was manageable were beginning to understand that they had been wrong.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Patricia.
*Daniel's attorney just called.
He wants to schedule a meeting.
All parties.
He's calling it a conversation.*
I finished the sandwich.
Wiped my hands.
Typed back.
*Tell him Thursday.
My office.
And tell him to bring Richard.*
Three seconds later: *Are you sure?*
I put the phone in my bag and walked back out into the cold.
I was sure.
I had been sure for a long time.
But Thursday was two days away.
And Daniel, I knew, would not spend those two days quietly.
May you like
That evening, my sister called.
"Claire," Meg said, "Daniel came to my house."
