Chapter 5: The Name She Didn't Expect Me to Know
Sunday morning, Marcus called at seven forty-five.
"I need you to come to my office," he said.
"Bring nothing.
Tell no one."
I dropped Estelle at her grandmother's — my mother, Patricia, who asked no questions and handed Estelle a bowl of oatmeal before I had finished saying goodbye.
Patricia had always known when to be quiet.
It was one of the things I was most grateful for.
Marcus's office was empty except for him and a woman I didn't recognize.
She was sitting at the conference table with a laptop open and a folder beside it.
She was perhaps fifty, with the kind of stillness that suggested she had spent a long time in rooms where things were decided.
"This is Vera," Marcus said.
"She works in financial investigation.
She's been looking into Lorna since last night."
I sat down.
"What did you find?"
Vera turned the laptop toward me.
"Lorna Ashworth has done this before."
The screen showed a photograph.
A man, perhaps sixty, standing outside a courthouse.
Below it, a case number and a date from four years ago.
"His name is Gerald Foss," Vera said.
"Widower.
Two adult children from his first marriage.
He met a woman named Lorna Crane eighteen months after his wife passed.
They became engaged.
She moved into his home.
Eight months later, she attempted to have his adult son removed as executor of his estate and replace him with herself.
When the son pushed back, she filed a complaint with family services alleging that the son had been emotionally @busive toward her and toward Gerald."
I looked at the photograph.
Gerald Foss looked tired in the way that people look tired when they have been fighting something they didn't expect to have to fight.
"What happened?" I asked.
"The son hired an investigator.
They found that Lorna Crane had a previous relationship with a man in another state — same pattern.
Widower, young child, financial vulnerability.
That relationship had ended with a civil suit that was settled quietly." Vera closed the laptop.
"Gerald Foss ended the engagement.
Lorna Crane disappeared.
And approximately fourteen months later, she appears in your city under the name Lorna Ashworth."
The room was very quiet.
"She changed her name," I said.
"Legally.
Which is her right.
But the pattern is the same." Vera folded her hands on the table.
"She targets men who are grieving, who have children, and who have something she can use.
The custody arrangement, the medical history — she wasn't going to use those to win in court.
She was going to use them to pressure you into a financial settlement.
That's what she did with Foss.
He paid her to go away."
"I'm not going to pay her to go away."
"No," Marcus said.
"You're not.
Because we're going to give her a different choice."
He slid a folder across the table toward me.
"Gerald Foss's son has agreed to provide a sworn statement about the prior pattern.
Vera has documentation of both previous relationships.
And Monday morning, before Lorna walks into that courthouse, I am going to call her attorney — she filed for one Friday afternoon, which tells us she was always planning to go through with this — and I am going to read him every item in that folder."
I looked at the folder but didn't open it.
"She'll deny it," I said.
"She'll try." Marcus sat back.
"But her attorney will tell her the same thing I'm telling you.
The moment this goes public, it goes both ways.
Her history becomes part of the record too."
I thought of Estelle asking me three times if she was going to the orphanage.
"What if she doesn't back down?"
Vera answered before Marcus could.
"In my experience, people who operate the way Lorna does rely on their targets being too ashamed or too afraid to fight back.
The moment you show her that you know who she is and what she's done before — the calculation changes."
I looked at the photograph of Gerald Foss again.
A tired man outside a courthouse.
I thought about what it had cost him to agree to that statement.
To open that chapter again for a stranger he had never met.
"Tell Gerald Foss thank you," I said.
Vera nodded.
"I will."
I stood up and picked up the folder.
"One more thing," Marcus said.
"Ruth.
Is she going to be a problem Monday?"
"No," I said.
"She's going to be a witness."
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"She's willing to state, on record, that Lorna approached her first.
That Lorna sought out the information deliberately.
That changes the picture." I moved toward the door.
"Lorna didn't stumble into a vulnerable man's life.
She hunted one."
I left the office and sat in my car for a moment before starting the engine.
My phone showed one unread message.
It had arrived at six forty-three that morning, before I had even woken up.
It was from Lorna.
*I hope you've had time to think.
The offer stands.
Walk away from Monday quietly and this stays between us.
For Estelle's sake.*
I set the phone face-down on the passenger seat.
May you like
She still thought I was afraid.
By tomorrow morning, she would know differently.
