Chapter 7: You Should Ask Clara
Adrian showed her the phone.
Clara read the message.
She read it again.
Then she looked up at Adrian with an expression that was not fear — it was something quieter and more complicated than fear.
"Ask me what?" she said.
"I don't know." He turned the phone over in his hand.
"Do you?"
She was quiet for long enough that the silence became its own kind of answer.
"There's something I haven't told you," she said.
"Not because I was hiding it.
Because I didn't think it was relevant.
And because I didn't think it would ever reach this house."
"Tell me now."
She sat down on the bottom stair.
He sat beside her.
"Before I moved to this city," she said, "I was in a relationship.
For four years.
His name was Patrick.
He came from money — old money, the kind that has lawyers on retainer and considers that normal." She looked at her hands.
"When we ended things, he didn't take it well.
He hired someone to follow me.
To document my movements.
To build a picture of me that he could use if I ever — if I ever caused him problems."
"What kind of problems?"
"He was engaged to someone else within six months of us ending.
Someone from a family his parents approved of.
He was worried I might say something.
Interfere." She paused.
"I didn't.
I had no interest in his life.
But the surveillance didn't stop.
It followed me to the new apartment.
To the new job.
For almost a year."
"Gerald Marsh," Adrian said.
"I think so.
Yes.
I think Patrick was paying him.
And I think when Patrick eventually moved on and stopped paying, Marsh kept the file.
And when Raymond came looking—"
"Marsh sold it."
"Or shared it.
Or made an introduction." She looked at Adrian.
"There's nothing in that file that would damage me.
I know that because I know what I did and didn't do.
But Raymond doesn't know that.
He bought a file and assumed it contained something useful."
"And Vanessa was supposed to find the useful thing," Adrian said.
"Yes.
And when she couldn't find it in the file, she went looking herself.
My phone.
My schedule.
My conversations." Clara's voice was steady, but her hands weren't.
"When she still couldn't find anything, she tried to manufacture something.
The photo of Daniel.
The text messages to my therapist."
"And when that wasn't enough," Adrian said slowly, "she tried something she thought couldn't be traced back to her."
"The stroller," Clara said.
They sat on the bottom stair in the quiet house.
"Patrick," Adrian said.
"Do you think he's still involved?"
"I don't know.
I haven't heard from him in almost two years."
"Would he know Raymond?"
Clara looked at him.
The question landed somewhere unexpected.
"I don't know," she said.
"But Patrick's family is in property.
Old money, old networks." She paused.
"It's possible."
Adrian stood up.
He looked at the unknown number on his phone.
"Someone sent this to warn me," he said.
"Or to destabilize us.
I don't know which."
"Could be either," Clara said.
"Could be Raymond testing whether there's something you don't know about me.
Or it could be someone on the edges of this who wants it to stop."
"Is there anyone who would want it to stop?"
Clara thought about it.
"Marsh," she said slowly.
"If he realizes how far this has gone — a child being put at risk — he might want distance.
He's greedy, not reckless.
What happened with the stroller crossed a line he didn't sign up for."
Adrian looked at the message again.
"I'm going to reply," he said.
"Adrian—"
"Not to engage.
Just to say: *We know enough.
If you want to help, call.*"
Clara considered it.
"And if it's Raymond?"
"Then he learns we're not frightened." He looked at her.
"Are you?"
She thought about Emma upstairs.
About the stroller on the floor.
About the mark on her face that had already faded to almost nothing.
"No," she said.
He typed the message and sent it.
They waited.
May you like
Forty seconds later, the phone rang.
It was Marsh.
