Chapter 7: What Vanessa Did Next
She didn't wait long.
Three days later, a message arrived in Adrian's work inbox.
No sender name.
A temporary address.
Two attachments and four sentences.
*Your wife has been lying to you since before you married her.
The attached documents are from her previous relationship.
Ask her about Marcus.
Ask her what she did to him.*
Adrian stared at the screen for a long time.
Then he forwarded it to Clara without a word.
Her reply came eleven minutes later.
*Can you come home early today?*
He was there by two.
Clara was sitting at the kitchen table with a folder in front of her.
Old.
The edges soft from handling.
"I was going to tell you about Marcus eventually," she said.
"I kept waiting for the right moment and the right moment never came and then enough time passed that it felt like something I'd buried."
"Who is he?"
"My ex-fiancé." She opened the folder.
"We were together for four years.
Engaged for eight months.
I ended it three weeks before the wedding."
"Why?"
"Because I found out he had been seeing someone else for the last year of our relationship.
And because when I confronted him, he told everyone I had a breakdown.
That I was unstable.
That I had invented the affair to justify leaving him." She slid a piece of paper across the table.
"He sent letters to my employer.
To my family.
To mutual friends.
He was very thorough."
Adrian read the letter.
It was formal.
Precise.
Devastating in the way that only very deliberate cruelty can be.
"How does Vanessa know about this?"
"Because Marcus and Vanessa went to the same university.
Not at the same time.
But they know people in common." Clara closed the folder.
"I think she found him.
Or he found her.
I think this has been coordinated for longer than either of us realized."
Adrian set the letter down.
"She's working with your ex."
"I think so."
"To do what, exactly?"
"To make you believe I'm someone I'm not.
So that when she steps in—" Clara stopped.
"So that when she steps in," Adrian finished quietly, "it looks like rescue."
The kitchen was very still.
"She's in love with you," Clara said.
Not as an accusation.
As a fact she had been carrying for a while.
"Isn't she."
Adrian didn't answer immediately.
That was its own answer.
"She said something once," he said finally.
"Two years ago.
I told her it wasn't like that.
I thought she accepted it."
"She didn't accept it.
She made a different plan." Clara looked at him.
"Adrian, she put Emma in danger.
Whatever she felt for you, she was willing to risk your daughter to get what she wanted.
That's who she is."
He stood up.
Walked to the window.
Stood there with his back to her.
"I need to call someone," he said.
"Who?"
May you like
"A lawyer." He turned around.
"And then I need to call the police."
