Chapter 6: The Attorney's Office
My attorney's name was Grace Okafor.
I had first called her eight months ago, sitting in my car outside a coffee shop with shaking hands and a folder full of documents I barely understood.
She had listened to everything without interrupting.
When I finished, she had said: *You did the right thing copying these.
Now we wait and we watch, and when the time comes, we move fast.*
The time had come.
I called her at nine-forty that evening from the parking lot of a hotel two miles from the house.
She picked up on the third ring.
"Claire."
"I need to see you tomorrow morning.
Early."
"What happened?"
I told her everything.
The second folder.
The photograph.
Diane's call.
The name on the back of my hand.
By the time I finished, I could hear her writing.
"Harwell-Vance Holdings LLC," she repeated.
"Give me tonight to run it."
"There's something else." I hesitated.
"The Tessa I know — Marcus's daughter from his first marriage — she knew about the documents.
She may have known for months.
I don't know how much she was involved."
"How old is she?"
"Seventeen."
"Okay." Grace's voice was careful.
"We treat her as a witness, not a participant, unless something tells us otherwise.
Understood?"
"Understood."
"Where are you sleeping tonight?"
"A hotel."
"Good.
Don't go back to the house.
Don't answer Marcus's calls.
If he shows up at the hotel, you call me first and the police second." A pause.
"Claire, I need to ask you something directly."
"Go ahead."
"In the five years of your marriage, did you ever sign any document that Marcus put in front of you without reading it fully first?"
The question landed like a stone dropped into still water.
I thought back.
The mortgage refinance two years ago.
The investment account paperwork he had brought home one evening, already tabbed for signatures, while dinner was on the stove.
The insurance forms.
"Possibly," I said.
"How many times, approximately?"
"I don't know.
A few."
Grace was quiet for a moment.
"That's not your fault.
That's a pattern.
And a pattern is useful." She paused again.
"Get some sleep.
Eight o'clock tomorrow.
My office."
I sat in the parking lot for a while after she hung up.
My phone showed fourteen missed calls from Marcus and one text sent twenty minutes ago:
*Claire, whatever Diane told you, she has her own reasons for saying it.
Please don't make any decisions tonight.
Come home.*
I put the phone face-down on the passenger seat.
Then I picked it up again and sent one message to a number I hadn't used in two years — my older sister Janet, who lived forty minutes away and who had never trusted Marcus from the beginning.
*Can I stay with you tonight?
I'll explain everything.*
Her reply came back in under a minute.
*Door's unlocked.
May you like
I'll put the kettle on.*
I pulled out of the parking lot and drove toward the only person who had never once asked me to be patient.
