Chapter 8 - A Marriage Built Around an Omission
That night Damon moved into the guest bedroom.
Felicity did not argue.
She stood in the hallway while he carried a week’s worth of clothes.
“Are you leaving me?”
“I don’t know.”
“That sounds like yes.”
“It sounds like I don’t know.”
Ivy had gone to Claire’s house for the night.
They had agreed she should not hear another argument.
Felicity leaned against the doorframe.
“I never cheated on you.”
Damon folded a shirt.
“I believe you.”
Her eyes widened slightly.
“That should matter.”
“It does.”
“But?”
“But betrayal isn’t limited to sex.”
She looked away.
Damon continued.
“For two years, Vincent sat in this house knowing something fundamental about me that my wife knew too.”
“I was afraid of what it would do to you.”
“You didn’t trust me to decide what I could survive.”
“I thought I was protecting your relationship with Richard.”
“He was already dead for four months.”
Felicity had no answer.
“You could have told me after the funeral,” Damon said.
“I almost did.”
“When?”
“The night we came home.”
Damon remembered.
They had sat in the dark at this same house while Ivy slept upstairs.
Felicity had held his hand for hours.
“You almost told me?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Vincent came the next morning.”
Damon looked at her.
“He told me Richard had left evidence somewhere. He said if I told you about the parentage, you would start asking questions, and then the financial records would come out.”
“So?”
“He said I would go to prison.”
Damon’s anger softened by one degree.
Not forgiveness.
Understanding.
“He convinced you that you were already guilty.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a CPA.”
“I know.”
“You understand financial records.”
“I understand how documents look when your signature is on them.”
She stepped into the room.
“I signed that fourth transfer knowing something was wrong. Maybe not exactly what. But enough.”
“Why didn’t you go to a lawyer?”
“Because I was ashamed.”
“That’s the first answer you’ve given me that sounds completely true.”
Felicity absorbed that.
Then nodded.
“Yes.”
Damon sat on the bed.
“What else are you ashamed of?”
She remained standing.
“I deleted emails.”
His gaze snapped up.
“How many?”
“Three.”
“When?”
“About a year ago.”
“What were they?”
“Vincent telling me what to write in explanations for the Hawthorne payments.”
Damon went cold.
“You destroyed evidence.”
“I deleted them from my inbox.”
“Are they recoverable?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought if anyone investigated, they would make me look guilty.”
“They would have helped prove he was directing you.”
“I know that now.”
Damon pressed his hands to his face.
She sat across from him.
“I saved screenshots first.”
He looked up.
“What?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to lose them completely.”
“Where?”
Felicity swallowed.
“On a flash drive.”
“Where?”
She looked toward the hallway.
“In Ivy’s dollhouse.”
Damon stared at her.
“You hid evidence in our daughter’s toy?”
“No one touches that dollhouse except me and Ivy. It has a false-bottom drawer.”
Damon stood.
“That is insane.”
“I was scared Vincent searched the study.”
“So you put it near Ivy?”
“He didn’t know it was there.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“No.”
He walked past her.
The dollhouse stood in Ivy’s playroom.
Felicity removed the tiny wooden kitchen cabinet and pressed beneath it.
A concealed compartment opened.
Inside was a flash drive wrapped in tissue.
Damon’s anger became something colder.
“You have had this the whole time.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me when I asked what you knew?”
“Because it proves I knew.”
He stared at her.
“Felicity, every choice you made to protect yourself made you look more guilty.”
“I know.”
Damon took the drive without plugging it in.
It would go directly to forensic counsel.
No contamination.
No accusations that files had been altered.
As he turned away, Felicity said, “There’s one screenshot you need to see.”
“You just said we shouldn’t open it.”
“I remember the words.”
Damon stopped.
“What did Vincent write?”
She closed her eyes.
“He wrote, ‘Richard thinks Hawthorne is about money. Keep it that way.’”
Damon turned slowly.
“What else would Hawthorne be about?”
“I never found out.”
The next morning they did.
The forensic team called Damon at 7:12.
They had begun matching Hawthorne vendor addresses against county property records.
One shell company had purchased a tract of land seventeen years earlier.
Not in Kentucky.
In Tennessee.
The deed listed a beneficial owner through an old partnership.
Helen Cross called five minutes later.
“Damon, the parcel isn’t valuable now.”
“Then why does it matter?”
“Because Hale Development paid for it.”
“So?”
“So the deed was never put in Hale Development’s name.”
Damon felt his stomach tighten.
“Whose name?”
May you like
Helen paused.
“Vincent’s.”
