Chapter 2 - THE LIE SAMANTHA EXPECTED ME TO BELIEVE
For several seconds, I thought I had misheard her.
“What did you say?”
Samantha went quiet.
Then softer:
“Daniel.”
“No. Repeat it.”
“You said you were going to confront Claire.”
“About what?”
Another pause.
“Hope.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
Hope was three months old.
She had my dark hair.
Claire’s gray-green eyes.
A tiny crease beside her mouth that appeared whenever she slept.
I had spent almost no time noticing any of it.
But I knew she was mine.
At least I had never questioned it.
“Samantha, why would I think Hope isn’t mine?”
“You told me you weren’t sure.”
“I never said that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“The night we went to Harbor House.”
I remembered the dinner.
I had complained about Claire.
About the baby crying.
About sleeping on the couch.
About how our marriage had become schedules and bottles and exhaustion.
I had said terrible things.
But I had never questioned Hope’s paternity.
Samantha’s voice sharpened.
“Daniel, don’t rewrite history because she finally left.”
Something inside me shifted.
“What exactly did I say?”
Silence.
Then:
“You were drunk.”
That was convenient.
I hung up.
She called back immediately.
I ignored it.
Then again.
Ignored.
I returned to Claire’s envelope.
Under the divorce petition was a laboratory report.
PATERNITY ANALYSIS.
My name.
Claire’s.
Hope’s.
Probability of paternity:
99.9998%.
I sat completely still.
Claire had taken the test.
Why?
Then I found the attached email.
It was from an anonymous account sent to Claire six weeks earlier.
You should know Daniel has been telling people the baby probably isn’t his.
Attached were screenshots.
Messages supposedly from me.
My profile picture.
My name.
Words I had never written.
CLAIRE TRAPPED ME WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S KID.
I felt nauseated.
The messages were fake.
But Claire had not known that.
She had quietly ordered a paternity test rather than confronting me.
Then she had discovered my real affair.
I kept reading.
The anonymous sender had contacted her four times.
Each message pushed the same idea.
I did not love her.
I resented Hope.
I planned to leave.
Some of that was horribly close to the truth.
Not the paternity accusation.
But enough truth wrapped around the lie to make it believable.
Then the final anonymous email appeared.
Dated yesterday.
Ask Daniel where your daughter’s college money went.
My stomach dropped.
Someone knew about the investment account.
Someone knew details only I knew.
Or someone who had access to me knew.
I looked toward the designer bags in the foyer.
Samantha knew I had money problems.
I had told her my investments were temporarily “illiquid.”
But I had never told her the money came from Hope’s account.
Had I?
My phone buzzed with a text.
SAMANTHA:
Don’t panic. We can finally be together now.
Then another.
You said this was what you wanted.
Before I could answer, someone knocked on the front door.
Three measured knocks.
I opened it.
A woman in a charcoal suit stood outside holding a legal folder.
“Daniel Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Rebecca Shaw, counsel for your wife.”
My throat tightened.
“Where are Claire and Hope?”
“They’re safe.”
“Where?”
“I’m not authorized to tell you.”
“That’s my daughter.”
“And you’ll receive appropriate parenting information through counsel.”
She handed me the folder.
I barely glanced at the first page.
Then Rebecca said:
“Before you contact Mrs. Morgan again, you should know she has also requested an emergency financial injunction.”
“Against what?”
May you like
Rebecca looked directly at me.
“Against the company you’ve been hiding from her.”
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