Chapter 10 - His Mother's Device
For ten seconds, I could not speak.
Patricia's device.
The woman who had carried Lily around the baptism like a proud grandmother.
The woman who cried when Noah's paternity result came in.
The woman who claimed she had not known Daniel used my identity.
A device linked to her had completed my electronic signature.
Mara dismissed the assistant and closed the conference room door.
"Do not call Patricia."
I stared at her.
"You think I was going to?"
"I think you are angry."
"I am beyond angry."
"That is exactly why you do not call."
Chloe sat quietly with Noah against her chest.
I stood and walked to the window.
Six floors below, people crossed the street carrying coffee and backpacks.
Cars stopped at a red light.
A delivery truck blocked half a lane.
The city kept moving as though my mother-in-law had not just been linked to a fraudulent signature in my name.
"Could the device identifier be wrong?"
I asked.
"Anything technical needs to be confirmed."
Mara chose every word carefully.
"But it is significant enough that Riverbend escalated the file."
"What kind of device?"
"A tablet."
I knew the tablet.
Robert had mentioned it that morning.
The shared tablet at his house.
The same one he used to find Patricia's emails.
My stomach turned.
"Robert said he and Patricia share a tablet."
Mara nodded.
"Then we do not know who physically used it."
The distinction mattered.
I hated that it mattered.
I wanted a clean villain.
I wanted the technology to point directly to Patricia and let me stop wondering.
Instead, it pointed to a device in a house occupied by two people, one of whom had just given me evidence against his son.
"Could Daniel have used it?"
"Yes."
"Could Robert?"
"Technically, yes."
"Could Patricia?"
"Yes."
I closed my eyes.
Facts first.
Mara's rule was becoming a sentence I repeated to myself whenever rage tried to outrun proof.
My phone rang.
Robert.
I looked at Mara.
She nodded.
"Answer normally."
I put him on speaker.
"Jennifer?"
"Yes."
"I found something else."
His voice sounded strained.
"What?"
"A payment from Daniel's company account to a private investigator."
I opened my eyes.
"What private investigator?"
"Northstar Investigations."
The name hit me because I had seen it before.
Not in Daniel's records.
On a car.
Three weeks before Lily was born, a gray sedan had parked across from my office two days in a row.
The second day, I noticed a small magnetic logo on the passenger door.
Northstar.
I had assumed it was a contractor.
My skin prickled.
"How much did he pay?"
"Four thousand dollars initially."
"Initially?"
"There is another payment for two thousand five hundred."
Mara started writing.
"When?"
Robert gave the dates.
The first payment was six weeks before Lily was born.
The second was eight days before the baptism.
I stared at Mara.
"He hired someone before Lily was born."
Robert continued.
"There is also an invoice description."
"Read it."
He hesitated.
"Domestic documentation and asset verification."
My mouth went dry.
"Asset verification?"
"That is what it says."
Mara leaned toward the phone.
"Mr. Hale, where did you obtain these records?"
"I am minority owner of the company."
"Do you have authorized access to the account?"
"Yes."
"Do not send anything you are not legally permitted to share."
"Understood."
He sounded irritated but not offended.
"There is another payment."
"To Northstar?"
"No."
"To whom?"
"Mason Price."
Daniel's lawyer.
"How much?"
"Seven thousand five hundred dollars."
I gripped the edge of the window ledge.
"From the company?"
"Yes."
"For his divorce lawyer?"
"The memo says strategic consultation."
Robert's disgust came through clearly.
"He used company money to prepare a divorce."
Mara looked at me.
That would be another issue.
Maybe not my issue alone.
But it was one more example of Daniel treating every pool of money around him like something temporarily waiting to become his.
"Robert, I need to ask you something."
I looked at Mara before continuing.
"What kind of tablet do you and Patricia share?"
He paused.
"An iPad."
"Where was it the day after Lily was born?"
Silence.
"Why?"
"Riverbend says my electronic signature was completed from a device associated with Patricia."
Robert did not speak.
"Robert?"
"I am here."
His voice had changed.
"Where was the tablet?"
"At the hospital."
My chest tightened.
"Why?"
"Patricia brought it."
I remembered.
Of course she had.
She had spent most of the morning in the family waiting area answering congratulations on social media.
At one point, she sat beside me and used the tablet to show me photographs from the night Lily was born.
Daniel had borrowed it later because his laptop battery died.
I remembered Patricia handing it to him.
"Daniel used it."
"Yes."
Robert's voice was quiet.
"For about an hour."
Mara wrote the time down.
"Do you know when?"
"Late morning."
My skin went cold.
The signature timestamp was 10:43 a.m.
"Was Patricia with him?"
"I do not know."
"Were you?"
"No."
"Where were you?"
"Getting coffee with your mother."
That was true.
I remembered my mother returning with two cups and complaining about the hospital cafeteria line.
"Do not delete anything from the tablet."
Mara spoke firmly.
"Do not reset it."
"I will not."
"And do not confront Daniel about the device."
Robert exhaled.
"I already confronted him about Northstar."
Mara closed her eyes briefly.
"What did he say?"
"He said he hired the investigator because he thought Jennifer was hiding money."
I laughed in disbelief.
"Before I moved my salary?"
"Yes."
"Before I found Chloe?"
"Yes."
"Before I met Mara?"
Mara shook her head.
"Actually, our first consultation was about four months before Lily was born."
I remembered.
I had made the appointment after finding the Messenger thread.
The investigator payment came two weeks later.
My stomach dropped.
"He knew I met with you."
Mara looked at me.
"Possibly."
"The investigator followed me."
"Possibly."
"That is why Daniel knew your name."
"That would explain it."
Robert swore softly through the phone.
Then he said something I did not understand at first.
"The envelope."
"What envelope?"
"I almost forgot."
I waited.
"Daniel left a sealed envelope in the company safe about a month ago."
"What was in it?"
"I do not know."
"Why was it in the safe?"
"He said it contained documents for a personal transaction and he did not want them at the house."
Mara sat straighter.
"Is it still there?"
"I am at the office now."
"Do not open it unless you have authority to access the safe contents."
Robert gave a tired laugh.
"I own the safe."
Mara asked Robert to email the Northstar invoices immediately.
He did.
Within minutes, they appeared on her screen.
The invoice language was dry and professional.
Surveillance.
Asset verification.
Domestic documentation.
No mention of jealousy.
No mention of divorce.
No mention of a pregnant wife sitting at home.
That was becoming another lesson.
The ugliest conduct often arrived inside boring paperwork.
I read the service dates.
One fell on the afternoon of my first meeting with Mara.
I remembered leaving work early and parking two blocks away because I was afraid Daniel might see my car near a divorce attorney's office.
I had felt secretive.
Guilty even.
All while someone Daniel hired was photographing me from across the street.
"He knew almost immediately," I said.
Mara nodded.
"If the investigator reported quickly, yes."
"Then why did he keep pretending?"
"Because knowing you consulted counsel did not tell him what you knew."
That made sense.
Daniel had been testing me for months.
Asking casual questions about money.
Mentioning refinancing.
Watching whether I reacted when Chloe's name appeared in an old college story.
He had not assumed I was ignorant.
He had been measuring the depth of my knowledge.
The realization made every recent conversation feel different.
"He was investigating me while I was investigating him."
"In a way."
"Except I was saving evidence of things he actually did."
Mara nodded.
"That distinction matters."
On the speakerphone, Robert said he had reached the office safe.
We heard movement through the phone.
A lock turned.
Paper rustled.
Robert went silent.
"What is it?"
I asked.
He did not answer.
"Robert?"
His breathing changed.
"There are photographs."
My stomach tightened.
"Of what?"
"You."
I closed my eyes.
"Where?"
"Outside Mara's building."
Of course.
"Anything else?"
More paper moved.
Then Robert went completely quiet.
"Robert?"
"There is a draft affidavit."
"About what?"
He swallowed audibly.
"It says you were having an affair."
I stared at Mara.
She stared back.
"With who?"
Robert read the name.
"A man named Evan Brooks."
I knew Evan.
He was my coworker.
He was also sixty-two years old, married for thirty-five years, and had driven me to Mara's office once when my car battery died.
Daniel had turned a ride to my lawyer into an affair.
Robert continued.
"Jennifer, there is more."
"What?"
"The affidavit is not signed."
"Then it is just another draft."
"No."
His voice shook.
"There is a note clipped to it."
"What does the note say?"
Robert read it slowly.
May you like
"Northstar will not substantiate. Find another witness."
