Chapter 4: Eighteen Months
The monitoring room was small and too bright.
Khloe lay on her side with sensors pressed to her stomach, listening to the steady rhythm of her daughter's heartbeat on the machine beside her.
The sound was the only thing keeping her from coming apart.
Richard pulled a chair close and sat without speaking for a moment.
"She's strong," he said finally.
"The doctor said everything looks stable."
"I know." Khloe's voice was flat.
"I heard him."
Richard folded his hands.
He had the same hands as her mother — broad, steady, the kind that had always made her feel like the ground wasn't going anywhere.
"Tell me," she said.
"Khloe—"
"Richard." She turned her head to look at him.
"Tell me what he said."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he did.
She listened without moving.
The heartbeat on the monitor kept its rhythm.
When Richard finished, she looked back at the ceiling.
"Eighteen months," she said.
"Yes."
"We'd been married four months when he gave her that number."
Richard said nothing.
"I was pregnant by month six." Her voice didn't crack.
It went somewhere quieter and more dangerous than cracking.
"He let her into every event.
For a year and a half.
He stood next to me at galas and charity dinners and board lunches and he was messaging her from a phone I didn't know existed."
"We don't know the full extent yet—"
"I know enough." She pressed her hand to her stomach.
The heartbeat continued.
"What was in the messages?"
"We haven't accessed the full thread.
The phone is locked.
We'd need his passcode or a court order."
"He'll give you the passcode," Khloe said.
"Tell him I asked."
Richard studied her face.
"Are you sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything." She closed her eyes.
"Get Elaine too.
I want to talk to her."
"Tonight?"
"Tonight."
Richard stood.
He paused at the door.
"For what it's worth — the footage is clear.
Isabella's account is finished.
Whatever else comes out, that part is already done."
"I know." Khloe didn't open her eyes.
"That's the smallest part of this."
He left.
Elaine arrived eleven minutes later.
She knocked softly and stepped inside, still in her event coordinator's blazer, her lanyard tucked into her pocket.
"Mrs.
Thorne.
I'm so sorry.
I should have said something sooner — about the guest list.
I noticed it months ago and I told myself it wasn't my place—"
"Sit down, Elaine."
She sat.
"You came forward tonight," Khloe said.
"That's what matters.
I need you to walk me through every event Isabella attended.
Every one you can remember.
Dates, who she sat near, whether Marcus spoke to her directly." She paused.
"I need to understand the shape of it."
Elaine opened her notebook.
She had already started writing.
"The first one I can confirm was fourteen months ago," she began.
"The Hargrove Children's Foundation dinner.
She was seated at Table 4.
Mr.
Thorne's table."
Khloe's eyes stayed on the ceiling.
"Keep going," she said.
Elaine kept going.
By the time she reached the seventh event, Khloe's hand had tightened on the edge of the bed rail.
Not from pain.
From the slow, precise accumulation of a picture she hadn't known she was missing.
Marcus had not been careless.
He had been careful.
Deliberately, consistently, systematically careful.
Which meant every smile, every reassurance, every quiet moment between them had existed alongside something else entirely.
Her phone lit up on the bedside table.
A message from Marcus.
*Please let me explain.
I need to see you.*
May you like
She turned the phone face-down.
"Continue," she said to Elaine.
