Chapter 5: What She Found Before Breakfast
Clara was up before anyone else.
She sat at the kitchen table with her laptop open and a notepad beside it.
She'd been there since five.
The tea had gone cold.
She hadn't noticed.
She started with the landlord.
His name was Gerald Marsh.
She'd dealt with him for fourteen months — long enough to know he was the kind of man who kept meticulous records of other people's failings and none of his own.
The deposit dispute had gone to a small claims mediator.
She'd won.
He hadn't spoken to her since.
She searched his name alongside Vanessa's.
Nothing obvious.
She tried the address of her old building.
She tried the street.
She tried the suburb.
Then she tried the property management company Gerald Marsh worked under.
The company name came up in a local business directory.
Listed as a director — third from the bottom — was a name Clara didn't recognize.
She wrote it down anyway.
Then she searched that name.
It took eleven minutes to find the connection.
A LinkedIn profile, semi-private but not fully locked.
A profile photo.
A list of previous employers.
One of them was a private investigation firm.
Clara sat back in her chair.
She looked at the name she'd written on the notepad.
Then she looked at the LinkedIn profile photo again.
A woman in her late thirties.
Professional headshot.
Neutral expression.
Clara had never seen her before.
But the firm she'd worked for — Clara searched that next.
It was small.
Local.
Specializing, according to its own website, in domestic and family matters.
She wrote down the firm's name.
Then she searched the firm alongside Adrian's name.
Nothing.
She searched it alongside the address of this house.
Nothing.
She searched it alongside her own name.
One result.
A local community forum post from two years ago.
Someone asking for recommendations for investigators who handled "complicated family situations." The post had three replies.
One of them recommended this firm.
The username of the person who made the original post was a string of numbers — no name, no history, account created the same day.
Clara stared at that username for a long time.
She heard footsteps on the stairs.
Adrian appeared in the kitchen doorway, still in yesterday's clothes, Emma on his hip.
"You didn't sleep," he said.
"No."
He looked at the notepad.
The laptop.
The cold tea.
He put Emma in her high chair without being asked and came to stand behind Clara.
She turned the notepad toward him.
He read it.
His face didn't change dramatically — it just went very still, the way still water looks right before something surfaces.
"She hired someone to investigate you," he said.
"I think so.
Before she ever set foot in this house." Clara closed the laptop.
"Which means this wasn't jealousy, Adrian.
It wasn't her being protective of the family.
She came here with a purpose.
She was looking for something specific."
"What?"
"I don't know yet.
But whatever she was looking for, she didn't find it.
Because if she had, she would have used it by now."
Adrian pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.
Emma banged her tray cheerfully, indifferent to all of it.
"Who hired the investigator?" he said.
"I don't know."
"Could it have been Vanessa herself?"
"It could.
Or someone sent her here after the investigation came up empty." Clara looked at him directly.
"Adrian, who knew about me before I moved in?
Who knew we were together?"
He thought about it.
"My sister.
A few people from work.
My mother."
Clara waited.
He heard it — the name he hadn't said yet.
"My mother passed away two years ago," he said quietly.
"I know.
I'm sorry." She paused.
"What about your mother's side of things?
Her family.
Anyone who would have had a stake in your life after she was gone?"
Adrian looked at Emma.
Something moved across his face.
"My mother had a will," he said slowly.
"There was a dispute.
A cousin.
He contested it.
He lost." He looked back at Clara.
"His name is Raymond."
Clara wrote the name down.
"Raymond," she said.
"Does he know Vanessa?"
"I have no idea."
She underlined the name once.
"We're going to find out," she said.
Upstairs, a door opened.
Olivia's footsteps crossed the landing.
She appeared in the kitchen, saw the notepad, saw their faces.
"Tell me everything," she said.
She sat down.
Clara turned the notepad toward her.
Olivia read it.
She looked up.
Her expression was not surprise.
It was recognition — the look of someone who had suspected a shape in the dark and was now seeing it clearly for the first time.
"Raymond," she said.
"You know him?" Adrian said.
"He came to the house once.
About eighteen months ago.
You weren't home.
He said he was just passing through." She paused.
"Vanessa was here that day too.
I remember because they left at the same time."
The kitchen went very quiet.
May you like
Emma banged her tray again.
Nobody moved.
