Chapter 4: What Marcus Knew
Daniel didn't move.
"What did you just say?"
Nora looked up at him.
The fear in her face had shifted into something more composed.
More deliberate.
"Marcus called me.
Last Thursday.
He said he wanted to discuss a settlement — off the record, before things got complicated." She folded her hands on the table.
"He said you were willing to offer me the house but nothing else.
No support.
No shared custody arrangement.
Just the house and goodbye."
"Marcus doesn't make calls like that without my instruction."
"No," Nora said.
"He doesn't."
Daniel pulled out his phone.
He scrolled back through his call history, his texts, his email.
His face gave nothing away but his thumb moved faster than it needed to.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" Nora tilted her head.
"Ask him.
Ask him right here when he arrives.
Ask him why he called me from his personal cell and told me to keep it between us."
The doorbell rang.
Daniel looked at the door.
Then at Nora.
Then he walked out of the kitchen.
Marcus Hale was fifty-three, silver-haired, and had been Daniel's attorney for eleven years.
He stepped inside with the practiced calm of a man who had walked into difficult rooms before.
He took in the broken cup on the kitchen floor through the open doorway.
He took in Lily curled on the sofa.
He took in Daniel's face.
"Tell me what happened," Marcus said.
"In a moment." Daniel closed the front door.
"First I need you to answer something."
Marcus waited.
"Did you call Nora last Thursday?"
A pause.
Brief, but there.
"Daniel—"
"Yes or no."
Marcus set his briefcase down on the hallway table.
He didn't look at Nora, who had appeared in the kitchen doorway.
He looked only at Daniel.
"She called me," Marcus said.
"I returned the call.
It was a professional courtesy, nothing more.
She said she wanted to understand the process.
I told her she needed her own representation."
"You told her about the custody offer."
"I told her nothing that wasn't already in the filed documents."
"The offer wasn't in the filed documents.
I hadn't approved the language yet."
Marcus said nothing.
The hallway felt smaller than it was.
"You need to leave," Daniel said.
"Daniel, let me explain—"
"You need to leave my house.
Tonight.
And tomorrow morning I need you to transfer my file."
Marcus picked up his briefcase.
He looked once at Nora — just once, quickly — and Daniel saw it.
A look that lasted less than a second.
The kind of look that only means something if you already know what it's attached to.
The front door closed.
Daniel turned to face Nora.
"How long have you been talking to him?"
Nora said nothing.
But she was no longer pressing her hands flat against the table.
May you like
She was almost smiling.
And in the living room, Lily had gone very, very still.
