“And the other two?”
“One resigned before HR could interview her formally.”
“The other?”
Rebecca paused.
“She signed something.”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
“An NDA?”
“A separation agreement with a confidentiality clause.”
“How much?”
“Forty thousand dollars.”
“For what reason, on paper?”
“Performance-related departure.”
Claire pressed her palm against her forehead.
“Rebecca, I need that woman’s name.”
“I can’t just hand that over. It’s protected.”
“Then find a legal way to reach her.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
Rebecca exhaled slowly.
“Claire, if this goes where I think it’s going, it’s not just Nathan’s ethics certification at risk.”
“I know.”
“It’s the whole merger.”
“I know that too.”
“Hawthorne’s board will fight this.”
“Let them.”
“They’ll fight you specifically.”
Claire looked toward the window, where morning light was just beginning to spill across the parking lot.
“Rebecca, a woman is missing.”
Silence.
“Her passport was left behind in a drawer that gets cleaned every week.”
“Claire—”
“I don’t care what the board wants to protect.”
Rebecca’s voice softened.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll find her.”
“Thank you.”
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful with the files.”
“What files?”
“You mentioned something about a locked office.”
Claire hadn’t mentioned that.
She realized her exhaustion had made her sloppy on the phone the night before.
“I may have thought out loud,” she said carefully.
“Don’t break into his house, Claire.”
“I won’t break in.”
“That’s not actually reassuring.”
“I have a key.”
“That’s worse.”
“He gave it to me. I’m his fiancée.”
“Were.”
Claire looked down at her bare left hand.
“Were,” she agreed quietly.
After the call ended, Claire sat in silence for a long time.
She thought about the ring sitting on the console table in Nathan’s foyer.
She thought about her wedding dress hanging in her mother’s closet.
She thought about two hundred guests who would need to be told something, soon, in some form that wouldn’t destroy her privacy entirely.
But mostly she thought about Daniela.
A woman with no last name she could remember correctly.
A woman whose passport sat abandoned in a drawer that should have followed her wherever she went.
By nine that morning, Marisol had eaten something small and was resting.
Claire made a decision.
She drove back toward Nathan’s townhouse.
Not to see him.
To see what he was hiding.
She parked two streets away, near a small coffee shop with outdoor seating, and watched the building for twenty minutes.
At 9:40, Nathan’s car pulled out of the private garage.
He was dressed for the office.
Charcoal suit again, different tie.
He looked, from a distance, exactly like a man with nothing to hide.
Claire waited another ten minutes after he disappeared down the street.
Then she walked to the private entrance.
Her key still worked.
She hadn’t expected that.
Some small, foolish part of her had assumed he would have changed the locks by now, as though last night had rewritten every access code in his life the way it had rewritten hers.
But grief moves faster in some people than paranoia.
Or maybe he simply hadn’t thought she’d come back.
Inside, the townhouse was silent.
The ring was gone from the console table.
She didn’t know what that meant, and she decided not to think about it.
She moved quickly toward the study on the second floor.
The door was locked, exactly as Marisol had said.
She typed the code.
Zero four one two.
The lock clicked.
Inside, the office was immaculate.
Glass desk.
Leather chair.
A wall of awards and photographs of Nathan shaking hands with men in better suits than his own.
Behind the desk, a cabinet.
Also locked.
She tried the same code.
It didn’t work.
She tried his birthday.
Nothing.
She tried the company’s founding year, which she remembered from an anniversary gala two years earlier.
The lock clicked open.
Inside were folders.
Dozens of them.
Each one labeled with a first name only.
Daniela.
Rosa.
Ines.
Six names in total.
Claire’s hands were shaking as she opened the first folder.
Photographs.
Messages printed and stapled together.
Some of the messages were affectionate at first, the kind of thing that could be mistaken for genuine interest if you didn’t know what came after.
