Chapter 7: The Woman in My Robe
I went to see Sienna myself.
Patricia advised against it.
She used words like *inadvisable* and *legally complex* and *emotionally counterproductive.* I listened to all of it and went anyway.
Sienna was staying in a serviced apartment in the east of the city.
Richard had arranged it before his arrest — paid three months in advance from an account Patricia hadn't found yet, which told me there were still things we didn't know.
The building was clean and anonymous, the kind of place people stayed when they didn't want to be found.
She opened the door on the second knock.
She was wearing a plain grey cardigan, her hair pulled back, no makeup.
Eight months pregnant and standing in a doorway looking at the woman whose face she had watched hit a marble floor.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
"I wondered if you'd come," she said finally.
"Can I come in?"
She stepped back.
The apartment was small.
A sofa, a kitchenette, a half-eaten meal on the table.
She lowered herself carefully onto the sofa and I sat in the chair across from her.
"You took his call," I said.
"He's the father of my child."
"He's also the man who told you I had nothing, then used you to occupy my house while he waited for me to die."
She looked at her hands.
"I know," she said quietly.
"What did he say?
On the call."
She was silent for a moment.
"He said the charges wouldn't stick.
He said his lawyers were the best in the country and that I shouldn't speak to anyone — especially not you — and that if I stayed quiet, everything would be fine."
"And if you didn't stay quiet?"
Her jaw tightened.
"He said I'd be named as a co-conspirator.
That I knew about the financial transfers.
That I'd signed documents — which I did, I signed things he put in front of me, I didn't always read them — and that if I cooperated with you, he'd make sure I went down with him."
She looked up at me.
"He said I'd lose the baby," she said.
"Not — he didn't mean it like that.
He meant custody.
He said he'd make sure I was declared unfit.
That he had people who would testify to things about me.
Things that weren't true."
I looked at her for a long moment.
She was twenty-six years old.
I had done the math weeks ago, in the guest room, in the dark.
Twenty-six, pregnant, in a city she hadn't grown up in, with a man who had, I now understood, been systematically isolating her from anyone who might have told her the truth.
"Did you know?" I said.
"About the diagnosis.
About what he arranged with the doctor."
She shook her head.
Fast, certain.
"I knew you were sick," she said.
"He told me you were sick.
I thought — I thought it was real.
I thought you were dying and he was — I thought he was grieving in his own way.
I thought the way he treated you was grief and guilt and I told myself—" She stopped.
"I told myself a lot of things I shouldn't have."
"You watched him h*t me," I said.
The words landed in the room like something physical.
"I know," she said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I know I did.
And I have thought about that every day since.
I didn't stop him.
I didn't help you.
I sat there and I—" She pressed her hand to her mouth for a moment.
"I'm sorry.
I know that doesn't mean anything."
"It means something," I said.
"It doesn't fix it.
But it means something."
She looked at me with an expression I hadn't expected.
Not gratitude.
Something more complicated.
Like she was trying to understand why I was being decent to her and couldn't quite find the reason.
"Why are you here?" she said.
"You don't need me.
You have the drive.
You have the recordings."
"I need you to make a formal statement," I said.
"About the call he made from custody.
About the threat he made regarding your child.
That's witness tampering.
It strengthens the case significantly."
"And if I do that, he'll follow through.
He'll try to take the baby."
"He'll be in prison," I said.
"He won't be taking anything."
She looked at me for a long time.
"You really believe that," she said.
"I've spent eleven years building companies from nothing while Richard told everyone he ran them," I said.
"I know how to finish what I start."
Something shifted in her face.
Not quite a smile.
Something quieter.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"I'll make the statement." She looked down at her hands again.
"For what it's worth — I'm glad you're not dying."
I stood up to leave.
At the door, I stopped.
"When the baby comes," I said, "make sure the birth certificate reflects the truth about the father.
Don't let him use the child as leverage later.
Get your own solicitor.
Not anyone Richard recommended."
She nodded.
"Catherine," she said.
I turned.
"The account he used to pay for this apartment," she said.
"The one your lawyer hasn't found yet.
The account number is in the kitchen drawer.
He gave it to me in case of emergencies.
I wrote it down."
She stood up slowly, went to the kitchen, and came back with a folded piece of paper.
I took it.
"Thank you," I said.
May you like
"Don't thank me," she said.
"Just make sure he can't do this to anyone else."
