Chapter 7 - The House in Chicago Was No Longer My Home

Miriam did not like my plan.

That was how I knew it was probably a bad one.

“I am not telling you that you can never return to your marital residence,” she said. “I am telling you that you should not enter a house controlled by a man whose business structure appears to have used your identity.”

“I need my records.”

“We can subpoena records.”

“I need my mother’s jewelry. My passport. The original tax folders. And whatever else he thinks I’ll never look for.”

“You need a supervised retrieval.”

So that was what we arranged.

Two days later, I flew to Chicago with Lena and a retired federal marshal Miriam used for difficult domestic cases. His name was Owen Grant, and he spent the flight reading a paperback western while I stared at clouds.

The Carter house stood behind iron gates in Lincoln Park, all limestone and dark windows. I had once loved the clean lines. Coming back, I noticed how little of me was visible from outside.

David was not there.

His attorney was.

So were two private security men.

Owen photographed every room before I touched anything.

My bedroom looked exactly as I had left it before the lake. A maternity pillow curved across the bed. On the dresser sat a framed ultrasound image.

I stopped breathing.

Lena moved toward it.

“No,” I said.

I picked it up myself.

Our daughter’s profile was a pale crescent against black.

We had planned to call her Grace.

I had never said the name after the hospital.

I carried the frame to the suitcase and placed it between two sweaters.

Then I opened the closet.

My clothes were there. David’s side was half empty.

In his dresser, I found nothing useful. In the office, every file cabinet had been cleared of business material except tax returns and ordinary household documents.

Too clean.

“Someone prepared,” Owen said.

The safe behind a painting was empty.

I knew the code.

Our wedding date.

That seemed funny now.

In a locked drawer beneath my old desk, I found copies of charitable foundation forms I vaguely remembered signing. Daniel had asked me to collect anything with my signature.

I stacked them into a box.

Then Lena called from the hallway.

“Simone.”

She was holding a package addressed to me.

No return address.

The postmark was from the previous week, before the lake accident.

I looked at David’s attorney.

“Was this opened?”

“No.”

Owen checked the seams before handing it over.

Inside was a flash drive and a handwritten note.

If you ever get tired of being the clean name on dirty paper, look at folder 17.

No signature.

The handwriting was not Rebecca’s, at least not the sample I had seen on social invitations.

We did not plug the drive into any household computer.

Owen sealed it in an evidence bag.

In the kitchen, I stood near the island where David used to make coffee on Sunday mornings. The ordinariness hurt worse than the luxury. I remembered him barefoot, laughing when I burned pancakes. I remembered believing that private version of him was the truest one.

Maybe it had been true.

Maybe truth could coexist with harm.

That possibility was harder than simply calling him a monster.

As we prepared to leave, the front door opened.

David entered alone.

His gaze went first to the suitcase.

Then to me.

His face looked thinner.

“You came without telling me.”

“My lawyer told yours.”

“I mean me.”

“You don’t get that anymore.”

Owen stepped into view.

David barely acknowledged him.

His attention remained on my abdomen for one painful second before returning to my face.

“How are you?”

I almost hated him for asking.

“You don’t get that either.”

He looked toward the box of documents.

“What did you take?”

“My things.”

“Show me.”

“No.”

His expression hardened.

Then softened again.

The shifts were smaller now that I knew to watch.

“Simone, there are people using this divorce to get to me.”

“I’m not part of your organization.”

“They think you are.”

“Because you put my name on it.”

He flinched.

Not much.

Enough.

I stepped closer.

“Tell me the truth. Did you know the dock was unsafe?”

His eyes held mine.

“No.”

I believed that answer.

It frightened me how quickly I believed it.

“Did Rebecca?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did Marcus?”

David looked away.

There.

Another missing truth.

Owen moved toward the door. “Mrs. Carter, we should go.”

David said, “Wait.”

I did not.

As I passed him, he spoke quietly.

“Folder seventeen isn’t about money.”

I stopped.

He had not seen the flash drive.

No one had mentioned it.

Slowly, I turned.

David realized his mistake.

“What is folder seventeen?” I asked.

His face closed.

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“Something your grandmother was never supposed to know existed.”

In the car, I held the sealed flash drive on my lap without touching it. The house disappeared behind us, smaller than its secrets.