Chapter 13 - WHAT MARGARET TOOK FROM MY DESK
Victor Hale ended Ethan's deposition at three-forty that afternoon.
Officially, the reason was that the parties needed to address an unexpected electronic-record issue.
Unofficially, Ethan's own phone had just displayed the name of the man connected to the unauthorized access of my private cloud account.
Ethan left through the garage.
Margaret stayed.
She was waiting in the lobby when Elena, Nathan, and I came out.
The anger on her face looked almost rehearsed.
"You ambushed him."
Elena kept walking.
Nathan did not even turn his head.
I stopped.
"He was under oath."
"You put that notification on his phone somehow."
I stared at her.
For once, even I was surprised by the accusation.
"Margaret, I cannot control what appears on Ethan's phone."
"You control everything else."
"No."
"You control his job."
"I don't."
"His car."
"The company owned it."
"The house."
"The company owns that too."
"Exactly."
Her voice cracked.
"You built a cage around him and waited for him to make one mistake."
One mistake.
I felt something inside me go quiet.
"Do you truly think this is one mistake?"
She looked away.
That was the first answer she gave me without speaking.
I stepped closer.
"Did you know about North Harbor?"
"No."
"Did you know he was investigating me?"
"No."
"Did you know he had copies of my private journal?"
Her face changed.
Tiny.
Fast.
But I saw it.
Nathan saw it too.
He turned back.
"Mrs. Walker."
Margaret folded her arms.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Nathan's voice became formal.
"Do not answer further if you believe you may need independent counsel."
That made her nervous.
"I don't need a lawyer."
"That is your decision."
I kept looking at her.
"You knew about the journal."
"No."
"You reacted before I said what was in it."
"Because Ethan told me you were accusing him of stealing private things."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
"What private things?"
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Nathan spoke gently.
"Mrs. Walker, I think you should stop."
She hated being told to stop.
It made her do the opposite.
"Fine."
She looked at me.
"You want the truth?"
My heartbeat slowed.
"Yes."
"You kept secrets from your husband."
"That is not an answer."
"You had locked boxes in your office."
I froze.
Nathan's expression sharpened.
Margaret continued, almost enjoying herself again because she thought she had found moral ground.
"A wife with nothing to hide doesn't need locked boxes."
"When were you in my office?"
"I visited my son."
"My office was private."
"It was in his house."
"No."
I took one step toward her.
"When were you in my office?"
She looked toward Nathan.
He said nothing.
"Last year."
"How many times?"
"I don't know."
"How did you open the fireproof box?"
That question hit.
Her eyes widened.
Only slightly.
I knew.
"Ethan gave you the key."
"Don't be dramatic."
"Did Ethan give you the key?"
"He asked me to find something."
"What?"
"Documents."
"Which documents?"
"I don't remember."
Nathan took out his phone.
"Mrs. Walker, I am going to repeat my advice that you obtain counsel before continuing."
Margaret glared at him.
"I did not steal anything."
"No one used that word."
"You were thinking it."
Nathan's face remained blank.
"I was thinking that you are describing access to a secured container in someone else's private office."
Margaret's cheeks flushed.
I asked the question I had been afraid to ask.
"Did you see my cloud recovery key?"
She looked at me.
Then away.
My stomach dropped.
"Margaret."
"There was a card with numbers."
I closed my eyes.
The recovery key was printed on a small laminated card.
"What did you do with it?"
"Nothing."
"Did you photograph it?"
Silence.
"Did Ethan?"
Her voice became defensive.
"He was your husband."
Everything inside me went cold.
"Answer the question."
"He took a picture."
Nathan stopped moving.
Elena's face hardened.
I could hear the lobby air conditioner.
A receptionist typing.
The elevator bell.
Normal sounds in a world that suddenly felt obscene.
"When?"
"I don't remember."
"Before or after my anniversary trip to Santa Fe?"
Margaret blinked.
"I don't know."
"Was it before Christmas?"
"Yes."
That was enough.
The first unauthorized cloud access occurred eleven months earlier.
Before Christmas.
"Why did he want it?"
"He said you were hiding money."
I laughed once.
It came out broken.
"And that was enough for you?"
"He was your husband."
"You keep saying that as though marriage is a search warrant."
Margaret's face tightened.
"You lied to him about your wealth."
"I never gave him permission to steal access to my private files."
"He needed to protect himself."
"From what?"
"From being humiliated by you."
There it was.
The belief beneath everything.
If Ethan felt small, someone else had to be guilty.
If Ethan cheated, I had failed him.
If Ethan lied, I had forced him.
If Ethan stole access, I had hidden too much.
Margaret had spent his entire life turning consequences into insults done to him.
Nathan asked quietly.
"Mrs. Walker, did you assist Ethan in copying any other records from Claire's office?"
"No."
"Did you help him remove the archival case?"
"No."
"Did you know the letter from Robert Sterling was fabricated?"
"No."
"Who first showed it to you?"
"Ethan."
"When?"
"About a year ago."
That was impossible.
The fake letter's metadata showed it had been created four months earlier.
Nathan and I looked at each other.
Margaret noticed.
"What?"
Nathan spoke carefully.
"Are you certain it was the same letter?"
"It said Robert wanted Ethan taken care of."
"Did you read the full document?"
"No."
"Did you see a signature?"
"Yes."
"Could it have been another document?"
She hesitated.
"Maybe."
I thought of the archival case.
Signature samples.
Board materials.
Old correspondence.
Ethan may have shown Margaret a genuine document containing my father's signature, then later built a fake letter around the story he had already planted in her mind.
He had not merely forged paper.
He had prepared a witness.
Nathan's phone rang.
It was the document examiner.
He stepped aside to answer.
His expression changed as he listened.
"Send me the comparison now."
He hung up.
"What?" I asked.
"The signature on the fake letter came from the 2017 Sterling Foundation donor authorization."
"We know that."
"They found something else."
He opened the email.
The scanned donor authorization carried a small crease across the lower-left corner.
The digital copy in Sterling Crest's archive did not show that crease.
The physical copy stored in the missing archival case did.
Ethan had not pulled the signature from a company server.
He had scanned the physical document from the case he removed.
Margaret stared at the screen.
Her face went pale.
"He told me those were his papers."
I looked at her.
For the first time since I had known her, Margaret did not look superior.
She looked afraid.
"Claire."
Her voice softened.
"I didn't know."
I believed that part.
It did not erase what she did know.
Before she could say more, Nathan's phone buzzed again.
This time it was a message from corporate security.
Ethan's hotel room had been cleared out.
He had checked out before dawn.
No one knew where he had gone.
May you like
And the portable scanner from the wine room was gone with him.
