Chapter 7: Sylvie
Clark found Sylvie Marsh four days later.
She was living in a small town about two hours north, working as an office manager for a landscaping company.
She was forty-one.
She had a daughter who was three years old.
Clark told me that last part carefully, watching my face.
I did the math without wanting to.
"Is the child—" I started.
"I don't know," Clark said.
"I don't have that information yet.
But the timing is consistent with the period when Jordan was making payments to her."
I sat with that for a moment.
Then I said, "Does she know we're looking for her?"
"Not yet.
I wanted to talk to you first." He set a piece of paper on the table.
An address.
"She may not want to be involved.
She made it clear two and a half years ago that she wanted Jordan out of her life."
"But she said she had proof."
"She did."
"Then she might want to use it."
Clark looked at me steadily.
"This is your call, Nora.
Reaching out to her is your decision.
If there's a child involved, this becomes something bigger than a financial fraud case."
I knew that.
I also knew that if I walked away from Sylvie Marsh, I was leaving a door half-open.
Jordan had already offered me a bribe dressed up as generosity.
He had sent a threatening text from an unknown number.
He was not going to stop.
"I'll go myself," I said.
"Not a lawyer.
Not you.
Me."
Clark started to say something.
"She was lied to the same way I was," I said.
"Maybe worse.
She deserves to hear from me directly."
I drove up on a Saturday morning, two weeks after the birthday party.
Sylvie answered the door in jeans and a sweatshirt, a small girl on her hip with dark curly hair and Jordan's exact jawline.
I knew before she said a single word.
She looked at me and she knew that I knew.
"You'd better come in," she said.
We sat at her kitchen table, the little girl playing on the floor between us with a set of plastic blocks.
"Her name is Maya," Sylvie said.
"She's three."
"She's beautiful," I said.
And she was.
"Jordan doesn't know she exists," Sylvie said.
"I found out I was pregnant after I sent that email.
I made a decision.
I didn't want him near her."
"That was brave," I said.
"It was survival." She looked down at Maya.
"What do you want from me?"
"I want to know what proof you have," I said.
"And I want to know if you're willing to use it."
Sylvie was quiet for a moment.
Maya stacked a red block on top of a blue one, very carefully, and then looked up at her mother for approval.
"Good job, baby," Sylvie said softly.
Then she looked back at me.
"He told me the same things he told you," she said.
"That his marriage was over.
That you were separated.
That he was just waiting for the right time." Her voice was even.
She had clearly said these words before, to herself, many times.
"When I found out I was pregnant, I told him.
He offered me money to go away.
When I refused, he threatened me.
He said he had a lawyer who could make my life very difficult."
"But you had proof," I said.
"I had recordings," she said.
"Phone calls.
I started recording them when I realized something was wrong.
I have him, in his own voice, describing the shell company.
Describing how he was moving money so his wife wouldn't find it during the divorce." She paused.
"He didn't know I was recording.
He thought I was just — someone he could manage."
The little girl knocked her tower over and laughed.
"I'll testify," Sylvie said quietly.
"I'll give you the recordings.
I've been waiting for two and a half years for a reason to use them.
I just didn't want to be the one to start it alone."
I reached across the table and covered her hand with mine.
"You're not alone," I said.
On the drive home, my phone rang.
Jordan again.
"Have you thought about my offer?" he said.
"I have," I said.
"And?"
"I'm going to need you to talk to your lawyer, Jordan.
Because mine is going to be calling his very soon."
A long silence.
"Nora." His voice had changed.
The smoothness was gone.
"Don't do something you can't undo."
"I'm not," I said.
"I'm undoing something you did."
I ended the call.
May you like
And I drove home through the autumn afternoon with Sylvie's recordings on a drive in my pocket and Maya's face somewhere behind my eyes, and I felt something I hadn't felt in a very long time.
Certain.
