Chapter 6: What Chloe Sent
The message was seven words.
*I didn't know about you.
I'm sorry.*
I read it four times.
Then I set the phone face-down on the tray table and stared at the ceiling and tried to decide what kind of woman sends a message like that at midnight to the wife of the man she has been building a property company with.
A frightened one, I thought.
Or a strategic one.
Or both.
I picked the phone back up.
*How did you get this number*, I typed.
The reply came in under a minute.
*He has your contact saved in his phone.
I've seen it.
I went through his messages tonight after he left my apartment.*
I sat up slightly.
The IV line pulled.
I settled back.
*He was with you tonight*, I typed.
*Yes.
He came here after — after whatever happened.
He didn't tell me what.
He just said there had been a situation with you and that you were being dramatic and that things were moving faster than planned.*
My hand tightened on the phone.
*Faster than planned*, I typed.
*What does that mean.*
A longer pause this time.
*The house*, she wrote.
*He told me the transfer was supposed to happen next month.
He said you'd found out about Heron Gate and that he needed to accelerate the timeline.
He wanted me to sign something tonight.*
*Did you.*
*No.* A pause.
*I didn't know the house was yours too.
He told me it was his.
He told me you had a prenuptial agreement that excluded it.
I'm a paralegal.
I should have done my own search.
I didn't.*
I thought about Frank's briefcase.
The title search.
The document trail he had described as very strong.
*Chloe*, I typed.
*My attorney's name is Frank Dellinger.
I need you to be willing to tell him what you just told me.*
The pause this time was long enough that I thought she wasn't going to answer.
Then: *Will it help you.*
*Yes.*
*Okay*, she wrote.
*I'll talk to him.
I want you to know — whatever you think of me — I'm not going to protect him.
Not after tonight.*
I put the phone down.
The monitor beeped its quiet rhythm.
I thought about Derek standing at the foot of this bed with gas station flowers, saying *this was all a terrible misunderstanding*, and I thought about him driving from this hospital to Chloe's apartment and asking her to sign something, and I thought about the crumpled twenty-dollar bill in the gravel puddle, and I thought about my mother's money, the sixty percent of a down payment, a house I had helped build into a home that he had been quietly selling out from under me while spraying citrus air freshener at my infected incision.
I did not feel angry.
I felt something colder and more useful than anger.
I pressed the call button for the nurse.
When she came in, I said, "Is there any way I could get something to write with?
Paper, anything.
I need to start making a list."
She looked at me — the IV line, the bandaging, the hour on the clock.
"Honey," she said, "it's past midnight."
"I know," I said.
"I'll be quick."
She brought me a notepad and a pen from the nurses' station.
I wrote Chloe's name at the top.
Below it I wrote: *Gary Paulson — Plattsburgh.*
Below that: *Pharmacy — generic substitution — date.*
Below that: *Air freshener — car — witnessed by me only.*
Below that: *Heron Gate Properties — Delaware — registration date.*
Below that: *Derek's text to Dad — timestamp — "terrible misunderstanding."*
I looked at the list.
Then I wrote one more line at the bottom, underlined it twice, and set the pen down.
*He said: "My wife doesn't smell like d\*ath." He was wrong about that too.*
Down the hall, the elevator chimed again.
I heard my father's voice, low and steady, speaking to someone I didn't recognize.
May you like
Then I heard Derek's voice.
He had come back.
