Chapter 10 - SUNDAY NIGHT
At 9:12 p.m., Rebecca formally adjourned the meeting.
I should have felt victorious.
Instead, I stared at the fertility record still lying in front of me.
Someone had accessed a medical file I had protected more carefully than almost any document in my life.
Victor's network could not have obtained it from Sterling Crest.
It was not there.
Nathan walked over.
"You are thinking about the leak."
"Only three people knew where those records were."
"You."
"My father."
"And me."
He said it quietly.
I looked at him.
Nathan had been my family's attorney for fourteen years.
He had helped arrange the fertility clinic trust payment specifically so Ethan would not see it on joint statements.
He had defended me for the last three days without hesitation.
Still, the fact remained.
Someone had obtained a real record.
"Nathan, who handled the trust paperwork besides you?"
He thought for a moment.
"A paralegal."
"Name?"
His expression changed.
"Melissa Grant."
"Where is she now?"
"She left my firm four years ago."
"For whom?"
Nathan pulled out his phone.
He searched.
Then he looked up.
"Victor Dalton's family office."
The boardroom suddenly felt cold again.
Victor had not just watched my marriage.
He had spent years placing people around my private life.
And before we could say another word, Daniel entered carrying a courier envelope.
It had arrived at headquarters during the meeting.
Inside was a certified petition filed in family court.
Ethan was requesting access to my frozen embryos as marital property.
At the bottom of the filing was his attorney's signature.
But attached to the petition was a sworn declaration from Ethan.
It said he had always intended to use those embryos to build a family with me.
That was impossible.
Until that night, Ethan had never known they existed.
I called Ethan at 9:34 p.m.
His attorney answered.
"Ms. Sterling, communications should go through counsel."
"Then explain why your office filed a sworn declaration containing facts your client could not possibly know."
Silence.
Nathan stood beside me with the petition open on the conference table.
"Mr. Reddick, this is Nathan Brooks."
"I am here."
"Did you draft the declaration?"
Reddick hesitated.
"My office prepared it based on client information."
"Put Ethan on the phone."
"That would be inappropriate."
Nathan's voice became colder.
"Then I will contact the court tonight and request an emergency evidentiary hearing on suspected false sworn testimony."
That changed everything.
I heard movement on the other end.
Then Ethan came on.
"What happened?"
He sounded confused.
"Did you sign a declaration saying you always intended to use my frozen embryos to have children with me?"
A long silence followed.
"Your what?"
My entire body went still.
Nathan looked at me once.
That answer was enough.
"You did not know about them."
"No."
Ethan's voice rose.
"What frozen embryos?"
Reddick cut in.
"Ethan, stop talking."
"No."
For once, Ethan ignored him.
"Claire, what is going on?"
I looked down at the filing.
"Your attorney filed a petition claiming the embryos are marital property."
"I never asked him to do that."
"He filed a sworn statement under your name."
"I did not sign anything tonight."
Reddick's voice sharpened.
"This call is over."
Nathan answered immediately.
"No, it is not."
"We will be serving your firm with a litigation hold within the hour."
Then he ended the call himself.
Ethan called me back from his personal phone thirty seconds later.
I answered.
"Did you sign anything about fertility treatment this week?"
"No."
"Did Reddick send you electronic documents?"
"Yes."
"What were they?"
"Temporary support forms."
"Did you read them?"
Ethan did not answer.
I laughed once without humor.
"Of course you did not."
"Claire."
"Did you sign electronically?"
"Yes."
"Using what?"
"A link from his office."
Nathan held out his hand for the phone.
"Ethan, forward every email and text from Reddick's office to the address I am sending you."
"Why?"
"Because someone may have reused your signature authentication."
Ethan went quiet.
"Is that illegal?"
Nathan stared at the phone.
"If it happened the way it appears to have happened, yes."
By 10:15, our forensic team had Ethan's emails.
The electronic signature certificate attached to the embryo declaration had been generated using the same authentication token Ethan used for a support affidavit two days earlier.
The timestamp on the declaration showed it had been executed at 6:03 p.m.
At 6:03 p.m., Ethan had been in a recorded meeting with his criminal defense attorney.
He had not signed it.
Reddick's office had a serious problem.
Nathan looked almost disappointed.
"Charles is too experienced for this."
"Meaning?"
"Either someone inside his office did it without his knowledge, or someone gave him a reason to take an extraordinary risk."
I thought of Victor.
Money did not make people reckless unless they believed consequences could be controlled.
"Who paid Reddick's retainer?"
Nathan smiled slightly.
"I was already wondering that."
The answer arrived before midnight through discovery disclosures connected to the emergency motion.
The retainer had been wired from a trust account funded by Dalton Family Holdings.
Victor was paying Ethan's divorce lawyer.
Ethan had known Victor offered to help with legal fees.
He claimed he did not know Victor was paying the firm directly.
I believed that part because ignorance was the one thing Ethan had demonstrated consistently.
The next morning, Nathan appeared before a family court judge at 8:00 a.m.
The embryo petition was temporarily withdrawn by Reddick's firm before the hearing began.
That did not make it disappear.
Nathan requested sanctions review and preservation of the firm's electronic signature logs.
Reddick appeared by video.
He looked furious.
"Your Honor, my office is investigating an internal administrative error."
The judge did not look impressed.
"A sworn declaration attributed to a client is not an administrative detail."
"We agree."
"Then preserve everything."
The order was entered.
By 9:10, the gossip site that had attacked me published another headline.
ICE QUEEN SECRETLY STORED EMBRYOS WHILE DENYING HUSBAND A FAMILY.
The wording was vicious.
It turned a private medical decision into proof that Ethan had been justified in leaving.
Margaret gave a quote.
That was the part that made me stop reading.
She said she had always suspected I was keeping her son from becoming a father.
She said Ethan had suffered silently for years.
She said Chloe's pregnancy was a blessing after a marriage filled with secrecy.
I handed the phone to Daniel.
"Save it."
"For defamation?"
"For memory."
He looked at me.
"Why?"
"Because when this is over, I never want anyone to tell me I should forgive her because she is family."
At 10:00, Chloe requested another meeting.
This time she agreed to come to Nathan's office with independent counsel.
Her lawyer was a young woman named Priya Shah who made it clear within thirty seconds that she did not work for Victor.
That was a good start.
Chloe sat across from me wearing a loose gray sweater.
She looked younger without makeup.
She also looked terrified.
I did not mistake that for innocence.
"My father knows I talked to you."
"I assumed he did."
"He cut me off financially."
I said nothing.
"He told me if I cooperate with you, he will challenge every trust my mother left me."
"Can he?"
Priya answered.
"He can make it expensive."
Chloe looked down at her hands.
"He is also demanding a prenatal paternity test."
I felt no surprise.
"Because of Adrian."
She nodded.
"Ethan knows now."
That did surprise me.
"You told him?"
"Last night."
"How did he react?"
Chloe laughed once, bitterly.
"The way a man reacts after discovering the woman he left his wife for might be carrying another man's baby."
I did not enjoy the symmetry.
It was too ugly.
"Why did Victor want the test?"
"He says certainty matters."
"For what?"
Chloe looked at Priya.
Priya nodded.
Then Chloe answered.
"Because if Ethan is the father, my father planned to use the baby to keep him tied to the divorce."
"And if Adrian is the father?"
She swallowed.
"Then Adrian was supposed to leave the country."
Nathan leaned forward.
"Supposed to?"
"My father arranged a consulting job for him in Singapore."
"When?"
"Next month."
The timing was too convenient.
Adrian was a loose end either way.
"Where is Adrian now?"
Chloe looked frightened again.
"I do not know."
"When did you last see him?"
"Thursday."
"Before or after the hotel?"
"Before."
"Did he write the lipstick message?"
Her eyes filled with tears.
"Yes."
Marcus had suspected as much.
"Why?"
"To scare me."
"On whose order?"
"My father's."
Nathan wrote it down.
Then I asked the question I had been holding.
"What did Victor mean when he said insurance documents could become useful?"
Chloe froze.
Priya looked at her.
"Tell them."
Chloe's voice dropped.
"Ethan has a life insurance policy."
"Lots of people do."
"This one is large."
I looked at Nathan.
"How large?"
"Twenty million."
I stared at her.
Ethan did not earn enough to justify a twenty-million-dollar personal policy.
"Beneficiary?"
Chloe whispered.
"Hale Logistics."
"Owner?"
"A lender trust."
Nathan's face hardened.
"D17?"
Chloe nodded.
A cold realization moved through me.
Victor had financed Ethan's company.
The financing required a massive key-man policy.
If Ethan died, D17 would receive the proceeds.
"Did Ethan know?"
"He signed the application."
Of course he did.
Whether he read it was another question.
I leaned back.
"Why do prenatal records matter to a life insurance policy on Ethan?"
Chloe looked at me.
"Because my father said a pregnant fiancée makes an accidental death look less financially motivated."
The room became completely silent.
I felt every muscle in my body tighten.
"Accidental death?"
Chloe started crying.
"I did not know what he meant until this week."
"What exactly did he say?"
"He said if Ethan became a liability, people would believe he was reckless after losing his marriage."
Nathan stood.
"We are calling federal investigators now."
Priya nodded.
Chloe covered her face.
I thought of Thomas Hale.
A single-car crash.
A man who had wanted to leave Victor's scheme.
A man who died the night before meeting my father.
Now Victor held a life insurance interest tied to Thomas Hale's son.
History was not repeating itself by accident.
At 11:22, Nathan called Ethan's criminal lawyer.
At 11:31, two agents were on their way to Hale Logistics.
At 11:44, Ethan stopped answering his phone.
At 11:52, his office manager called 911.
Ethan's car had been found running in the parking garage.
The driver's door was open.
May you like
His phone was on the concrete.
And Ethan was gone.
