Chapter 04 - Rebecca Did Not Come to Apologize

Rebecca crossed the ballroom while people moved out of her way.

Not because she was powerful.

Because nobody wanted to be close to the next explosion.

She stopped at the foot of the stage.

“Claire.”

I stared at her.

“You have extraordinary timing.”

“So did your mother.”

Daniel stepped forward.

“What are you doing here?”

Rebecca looked at him.

“Watching you lose control of the room.”

His face hardened.

“You were supposed to stay out of this.”

“I did.”

“For two years.”

“That was the agreement.”

My stomach tightened.

“What agreement?”

Rebecca looked at me.

Then at Ellie.

“Not in front of her.”

Ellie lifted her chin.

“That line stopped working tonight.”

Rebecca almost smiled.

She climbed the steps.

“Fine.”

Daniel reached for her arm.

Rebecca pulled away.

“Do not touch me.”

The room noticed.

So did Lauren.

She stood near the stage curtain holding my mother’s pearls in both hands.

Nobody seemed to know where she should go.

I understood the feeling.

Rebecca faced me.

“Four years ago, I helped Daniel pressure your mother.”

“Yes.”

“I regret it.”

“That is convenient.”

“Yes.”

I appreciated the answer more than I wanted to.

Rebecca continued.

“I believed the company was on the edge of bankruptcy.”

Peter Walsh spoke from the floor.

“It was.”

I turned.

The CFO looked miserable.

Daniel closed his eyes.

Another secret.

Peter said, “We had lost two major developments. Banks were calling lines. Payroll exposure was six weeks.”

I looked at Daniel.

“You never told me.”

“You were taking care of your mother.”

“That does not make me stupid.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He looked away.

Rebecca stepped in.

“Daniel told me if Margaret’s old documents surfaced during refinancing, the bank would pull out.”

“Would they?” I asked Peter.

He hesitated.

“Possibly.”

“So Rebecca helped him erase me to save the company.”

Rebecca’s voice was quiet.

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“Then the company recovered.”

I looked at Daniel.

He said nothing.

Rebecca continued.

“And Daniel never restored your rights.”

There it was.

An emergency can explain a bad decision.

It cannot explain twelve years of keeping the benefit.

Rebecca’s eyes filled.

“That is when I realized what I had helped him become.”

Daniel laughed bitterly.

“Oh, please.”

She turned on him.

“I begged you to fix it.”

“You begged me to create a legal disaster.”

“I begged you to tell your wife.”

“You have no idea what was at stake.”

Rebecca looked toward Lauren.

“I have some idea.”

Lauren flinched.

I felt no triumph.

Only fatigue.

“Why are you here, Rebecca?”

Her eyes returned to mine.

“To give you this.”

She removed an envelope from her coat.

Inside was a printed email chain.

Daniel to Rebecca.

Rebecca to Daniel.

Dates from eighteen months ago.

I read the first message.

Need Claire’s signatures updated before transaction. She cannot know until closing.

My pulse rose.

Next email.

Rebecca:

I’m done helping you hide this.

Daniel:

Then stay out of my business.

Rebecca:

It was Claire’s business first.

I looked up.

Daniel’s face had gone gray.

Rebecca said, “That was our last real conversation.”

“You disappeared because of this.”

“Yes.”

“You told everyone you moved because of your divorce.”

“I did move because of my divorce.”

She gave me a sad smile.

“Two things can be true.”

My mother’s kind of sentence.

Ellie looked between us.

“Aunt Rebecca, did you know about Lauren?”

Rebecca glanced at Lauren.

“No.”

Lauren spoke for the first time.

“I didn’t know about any sale.”

I believed her.

That bothered me.

Daniel looked at me.

“Claire, we need to leave.”

“No.”

“This is becoming a spectacle.”

I looked around at three hundred people.

“It became a spectacle when you put my mother’s necklace on another woman and brought her to the stage.”

Lauren closed her eyes.

“Please stop saying he put it on me.”

I turned.

“What?”

She held out the pearls.

“He gave me the box.”

“Yes.”

“He said they belonged to his mother.”

“You knew Daniel’s mother.”

Lauren blinked.

Of course she did.

Helen Harrison was alive and lived in Wisconsin.

Lauren’s expression shifted from shame to anger.

“He said she had given them to him years ago.”

Daniel whispered, “Lauren.”

She turned on him.

“No.”

The room went quiet.

She stepped toward me.

“He told me you and he had been separated privately for months.”

My stomach dropped.

That was a classic line.

I knew it.

Knowing did not reduce the sting.

“He said you were staying married publicly because of Ellie and the company.”

Ellie’s face changed.

Daniel looked at our daughter.

“Sweetheart—”

She stepped backward.

“No.”

One syllable.

Harder than anything I had heard all night.

Lauren continued.

“He said tonight was when he was going to announce that you had both agreed to separate.”

I stared at Daniel.

“Were you?”

“No.”

Lauren laughed.

“You told me you were.”

Daniel rubbed his forehead.

“I told you it was complicated.”

“You showed me divorce papers.”

My heart stopped.

Daniel looked at her.

Rebecca whispered, “What?”

Lauren reached into her clutch.

She removed folded pages.

Copies.

A petition for dissolution.

My name.

Daniel’s name.

A signature beside mine.

It looked exactly like mine.

Except I had never signed it.

Peter Walsh stepped closer.

“Oh, Daniel.”

Daniel stared at the papers.

I looked at him.

“You forged my signature.”

“No.”

His answer came too fast.

Lauren frowned.

“What do you mean no?”

Daniel took one step toward the documents.

“I didn’t create those.”

“You gave them to me.”

“I received them from my attorney.”

“Which attorney?”

Daniel stopped.

Rebecca stared at him.

I knew before he answered.

“Michael Cole.”

My cousin.

My mother’s nephew.

A family-law attorney.

The man who handled Margaret’s estate.

The man who stood at my mother’s funeral and held my hand.

I felt something inside me go cold.

“Michael forged them?”

Daniel shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Rebecca’s expression was almost pity.

“Daniel, you know.”

He said nothing.

Lauren looked between us.

“I want to leave.”

I nodded.

“You should.”

She held out the pearls.

I looked at Ellie.

They were hers.

Ellie walked over.

Lauren knelt slightly to meet her height.

“I’m sorry.”

Ellie took the necklace.

“Did you know he was still sleeping in Mom’s room?”

Lauren went white.

Daniel whispered, “Ellie.”

She looked at him.

“Were you?”

He had no answer that could help.

Lauren closed her eyes.

Then she slapped Daniel.

Not dramatically.

Once.

Flat-handed.

The sound carried across the ballroom.

She picked up her clutch.

Before leaving, she turned to me.

“He told me you stopped helping with the company after Ellie was born.”

I looked at Daniel.

Lauren’s voice shook.

“He said everything you had came from him.”

Then she walked away.

The master of ceremonies quietly left the stage.

People began speaking in low voices.

I thought the worst had passed.

Then my cousin Michael Cole stood from a table near the back.

I had not noticed him all night.

He looked at Daniel.

Then at me.

“Claire, I can explain the documents.”

My stomach dropped.

He walked toward the stage.

And in his hand was my mother’s blue recipe box.