Chapter 8: The Freeze
The hour passed slowly.
Grayson worked at the far end of the table, drafting filings, making calls in a low voice that never rose above a murmur.
Eleanor sat across from me and did not try to fill the silence.
I was grateful for that.
At eleven forty-three, Patricia called back.
"The freeze order went through," she said.
"Twenty-two minutes ago.
The Connecticut property is locked.
The two offshore accounts are flagged with the international unit — that takes longer, but the domestic transfers are frozen as of tonight."
I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding.
"How much did he move before the order?"
"Approximately four hundred thousand from the domestic account.
The rest is intact."
"Four hundred thousand."
"It's traceable," Patricia said.
"He moved it to an account in his attorney's name.
Which is a problem for his attorney."
I almost laughed.
"All right," I said.
"Thank you, Patricia."
"Get some sleep if you can," she said.
"Tomorrow is going to be a long day."
She was right about that.
I set the phone down and looked at Grayson.
"Assets are frozen," I said.
He nodded.
"I heard.
I'll have the filings ready by seven."
Eleanor stood.
She smoothed her coat — that same coat, still perfectly pressed despite everything the evening had thrown at it.
"I have a car outside," she said to me.
"You shouldn't be alone tonight."
I looked at her.
Four years of Sunday dinners where she had looked through me.
Four years of being introduced at events as *Richard's wife* with a pause before the word wife that said everything.
Four years of feeling like a guest in a family I had legally joined.
"Why?" I asked.
Not unkindly.
Genuinely.
She didn't look away.
"Because I owe you that much," she said.
"And because I am asking."
I picked up my bag.
My father's letter was inside it.
"All right," I said.
The building was nearly empty when we walked out.
A few staff members moving quietly through the main hall.
The cake still on the table, untouched, the frosting beginning to dry at the edges.
Someone had placed a cloth over the champagne stain on the floor.
We didn't speak in the car.
The driver knew where to go.
Eleanor looked out the window and I looked out mine and the city moved past us in the dark.
She had a house on the north side.
I had been to it twice before, for formal occasions, both times as Richard's wife.
It had felt like a museum then.
Ordered and cold and full of things that were not meant to be touched.
It felt different now.
Smaller.
More like a place where someone actually lived.
She made tea.
I didn't ask her to.
She simply went to the kitchen and I heard the kettle and she came back with two cups and set one in front of me without asking how I took it.
She had remembered.
Somehow, in four years of looking through me, she had noticed how I took my tea.
We sat at the kitchen table.
"I want to ask you something," I said.
"Ask."
"Did you ever like me?
Before all of this.
When Richard first brought me home."
She wrapped both hands around her cup.
"Yes," she said.
"I thought you were too good for him.
That frightened me.
Because I knew what he was, even then, and I thought if I let myself care about you it would be worse when it fell apart." She paused.
"That was a cowardly way to think."
"It was," I said.
"Yes."
We drank our tea.
"The Thomas Vane question," I said.
"I've been thinking about it since you told me.
About whether I want to know."
"And?"
"I think I don't need to," I said.
"My father wrote me four pages.
He told me everything I needed to hear.
A test isn't going to change what those pages say."
Eleanor looked at her cup.
"Robert was a better person than I deserved," she said quietly.
"He was," I agreed.
She didn't flinch at that.
She just nodded.
"What will you do?" she asked.
"After all of this is settled.
After the legal pieces are done."
I thought about it.
"I don't know yet," I said.
"I've spent four years being Richard's wife.
I'd like to find out what I am when I'm just myself."
Eleanor was quiet for a moment.
"That sounds like the right thing," she said.
My phone buzzed on the table.
A message from Patricia.
*Richard's attorney withdrew the parentage motion.
Filed at 12:04 AM.
Grayson has been notified.*
I showed it to Eleanor.
She read it.
Set the phone back down.
"Forty-eight hours," she said.
"Grayson said forty-eight hours."
"He was optimistic," I said.
Something shifted in her face.
Not quite a smile.
But close.
We finished our tea.
She showed me to a guest room at the end of the hall.
Clean, quiet, nothing like the formal rooms I remembered.
A window that looked out onto a garden that was dark and still.
"Claire," she said from the doorway.
I turned.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"For the years I wasted being afraid of you."
I looked at her for a moment.
"We'll talk," I said.
"When this is over.
Properly."
She nodded.
"Goodnight," she said.
"Goodnight, Eleanor."
She pulled the door closed.
I sat on the edge of the bed and took my father's letter out of my bag and held it for a while without opening it.
I didn't need to read it again.
I just wanted to hold it.
Outside, the garden was very quiet.
I set the letter on the nightstand, lay down, and closed my eyes.
May you like
Tomorrow, Richard would face what he had built.
Tonight, I slept.
