Chapter 2 - WHAT JULIAN LEFT BEHIND
The deputies gave me forty-five minutes inside the house.
Julian spent the first ten complaining.
Chloe spent them pretending not to look at me.
I spent them trying not to scream.
My photographs had already disappeared from the living room.
My mother’s quilt was gone from the couch.
Two suitcases sat beside the staircase filled with clothes I had not packed.
Julian had not simply locked me out.
He had begun erasing me.
“You could have handled this privately,” he hissed when the deputies moved toward the garage.
“You changed the locks.”
“You were going to leave eventually.”
“You emptied our accounts.”
“Those funds came from my business.”
“They came from both of us.”
Chloe shifted behind him.
Julian snapped his head toward her.
“Go upstairs.”
She obeyed immediately.
That interested me.
The Chloe I remembered from office Christmas parties had been confident, loud, almost aggressively friendly.
This woman looked nervous.
Not guilty.
Nervous.
I headed toward our bedroom.
Julian stepped in front of me.
“You don’t need anything in there.”
The deputy beside us raised an eyebrow.
“Sir.”
Julian moved.
That was when I knew there was something inside he did not want me to find.
I entered the bedroom.
My jewelry box was missing.
So was the folder containing insurance statements from my surgeries.
But Julian’s desk was still there.
I opened the first drawer.
Empty.
Second.
Empty.
Third.
Locked.
Julian appeared behind me.
“That belongs to the company.”
I looked at the deputy.
“He says everything belongs to the company.”
The deputy almost smiled.
I used the small brass key still hidden beneath the desk.
Julian went pale.
He had forgotten about it.
Inside were old tax statements, two passports, a business ledger, and a black envelope marked BEACON.
My fingers stopped.
Julian lunged forward.
“That is confidential.”
The deputy blocked him.
“Back up.”
I opened it.
Inside were invoices from Beacon Reproductive Medicine.
Not mine.
Julian’s.
The oldest was dated seven years earlier.
Three months before our first fertility appointment.
My vision blurred.
There were codes I did not understand.
ANDROLOGY CONSULT.
CONFIDENTIAL REPEAT ANALYSIS.
MALE FACTOR COUNSELING.
Then one handwritten notation:
PATIENT REQUESTS SPOUSE NOT BE INFORMED.
I could hear Julian breathing behind me.
“You knew.”
He said nothing.
I turned.
“You knew before I started treatment.”
“It wasn’t definitive.”
“The report said severe infertility.”
“Doctors are wrong all the time.”
“So you let them cut me open?”
Chloe had appeared in the doorway.
Her face was white.
Julian noticed her.
“Go downstairs.”
She didn’t move.
I held up the invoice.
“You watched me inject hormones into my stomach every night.”
“Stop being dramatic.”
The deputy’s expression hardened.
I almost hit Julian.
Instead, I looked at Chloe.
“Did he tell you?”
She looked at him.
That was answer enough.
“Chloe.”
Julian’s voice became dangerous.
“Downstairs.”
She flinched.
Then her hand instinctively covered her stomach.
And suddenly I understood something else.
“Does she know?”
Julian stared at me.
“Know what?”
I looked at Chloe.
“Does she know about your fertility results?”
Her eyes widened.
Julian stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
Chloe whispered, “What results?”
The room changed.
Julian had lied to both of us.
I felt it immediately.
He had told Chloe she was carrying his child.
But if his original diagnosis was accurate, there was another possibility.
A very ugly one.
Julian grabbed the black envelope.
The deputy caught his wrist.
“Sir.”
“Those are my records.”
“And potentially relevant marital evidence,” I said.
Julian laughed.
“You’ve suddenly become a lawyer?”
“No.”
I held his gaze.
“I got one.”
For the first time since he threw me out, his confidence cracked.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
Then Chloe spoke from the doorway.
“What fertility results?”
Julian turned toward her.
“Not now.”
“You told me she was infertile.”
“Chloe.”
“You said doctors tested you.”
“They did.”
“And?”
Silence.
Her face slowly changed.
She looked down at her stomach.
Then at Julian.
Then at me.
I should have hated her.
Maybe part of me did.
But the expression on her face was too familiar.
It was the expression of a woman realizing a man she trusted had rearranged reality around her.
I picked up the remaining papers.
Near the bottom was another receipt.
No clinic logo.
Only a laboratory name in Rhode Island.
PATERNITY EXCLUSION PANEL.
The date was three weeks earlier.
My heart kicked.
Chloe saw it too.
“What is that?”
Julian snatched for the document.
This time Garrison’s voice came from the hall.
“Don’t.”
Everyone turned.
He stood beyond the deputy, eyes fixed on the paper.
Julian looked terrified again.
Not angry.
Terrified.
Garrison stepped into the room.
“Where did you get that?”
I handed him the receipt.
He read the laboratory name.
Then his jaw tightened.
“Garrison?”
He looked at Julian.
“That lab was shut down eleven years ago.”
Julian said nothing.
Garrison turned the page over.
There was an address printed at the bottom.
He stared at it.
Then he whispered something I barely heard.
“No.”
“What?”
He handed the paper back to me.
“That address isn’t a lab.”
“What is it?”
Garrison looked toward Chloe’s stomach.
May you like
“It’s a storage facility.”
Julian bolted.
