Chapter 4: Whitmore and Associates
I sat in my car outside the diner with the envelope in my lap and Fiona still asleep in the back seat.
Guardianship.
I said the word out loud, quietly, just to hear what it sounded like.
It sounded like something being taken.
Something small and irreplaceable.
I opened my contacts and called the one person I trusted completely.
She answered on the second ring, which meant she was already awake, which meant she was already worried, because I had texted her from the car an hour ago with three words: *Something is wrong.*
"Jessi.
Talk to me."
"Nina." My voice held.
Barely.
"I need a lawyer.
Not a divorce lawyer.
A family law attorney.
The best one you know."
Nina Okafor had been my closest friend since nursing school.
She was also a hospital administrator who knew every professional in a forty-mile radius.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Luca and Chloe have been working with a solicitor's firm.
Something called Whitmore and Associates.
They were building a guardianship case against me.
They dr*gged me, Nina.
For eight months.
My own doctor just handed me the proof."
Silence on the line.
Not the silence of disbelief.
The silence of someone deciding exactly what to do next.
"Don't go home," she said.
"Don't go anywhere near that house.
Bring Fiona to me right now."
"I need the safe first."
"Jessi—"
"They built a case against me.
Whatever is in that safe is either more evidence against me or it's evidence against them.
Either way I need to see it before Luca does."
Another pause.
"Is he at the house?"
I checked the time.
Just past seven.
Luca's office didn't open until nine.
On a normal morning he wouldn't leave before eight-thirty.
"Probably," I said.
"But I have the key.
And he doesn't know what I know yet."
"Take someone with you.
Don't go alone."
"I'll call you when I'm out."
I drove back through streets that were just beginning to fill with early morning traffic.
Ordinary people going to ordinary places.
I watched them through the windshield and felt something very far away from ordinary.
I parked one street over and carried Fiona, still sleeping, wrapped in my coat.
She stirred once, murmured something about the puppy, and went still again.
The front door was unlocked.
That meant Luca was still inside.
I went straight to the study.
The safe was behind the lower cabinet panel — a detail Luca thought only he knew.
He'd forgotten that I'd watched him open it twice during the first year of our marriage, back when he still thought I wasn't paying attention.
I had always been paying attention.
The key turned smoothly.
The door swung open.
I set Fiona down on the armchair in the corner and looked inside.
There were three things.
The first was a folder.
Inside it, printed emails between Luca and someone at Whitmore and Associates going back eleven months.
The subject line of the earliest one read: *Re: Grounds for Incapacity — Spouse.*
The second was a USB drive with a strip of white tape on it.
Written on the tape in Luca's handwriting: *J — medical / behavioral.*
The third was a photograph.
Printed on regular paper, slightly creased.
It showed Luca and Chloe together — not in the guest room, not in our house.
They were standing outside a building I recognized immediately.
The Fiona Hartwell Children's Legal Centre.
The family court annex on Delaney Street.
The date stamp in the corner of the photograph was fourteen months ago.
Before I had ever suspected anything.
Before the fog.
Before the exhaustion I couldn't explain.
Fourteen months.
I heard a floorboard creak in the hallway.
I closed the safe, slid the folder and USB into my coat, and turned around.
Luca was standing in the doorway.
He looked at my coat.
At my hands.
At the safe behind me.
Then he looked at Fiona, asleep in the armchair.
"You came back," he said.
His voice was very quiet.
Very controlled.
"I knew you would."
"I came for what's mine," I said.
He took one step into the room.
"Jessi.
Whatever Reeves told you — he's confused.
He made an error and now he's trying to cover himself.
You know how these things work."
"I do know how these things work," I said.
"I work in a trauma ward.
I know exactly how these things work."
"Put whatever you took back in the safe." His voice dropped.
"And we can still fix this.
For Fiona's sake."
He said her name like it was a warning.
I looked at him for a long moment.
The man I had married.
The man who had told our daughter she was playing a game.
"Touch that safe," I said, "and I will call the police from this room."
Something moved behind his eyes.
Not fear.
Calculation.
"You don't have anything," he said.
"You have a confused doctor and a key."
I picked up Fiona without breaking eye contact.
She stirred, wrapped her arms around my neck.
"Whitmore and Associates," I said quietly.
"Eleven months of emails.
And a photograph from fourteen months ago."
His face didn't change.
But his right hand, hanging at his side, closed slowly into a fist.
I walked past him through the doorway.
He didn't stop me.
But as I reached the hallway, his voice followed me.
"You should call your sister," he said.
"Before you do anything else.
She has something to tell you.
Something you're going to want to hear before you make a very big mistake."
May you like
I kept walking.
But my stomach turned to ice.
