Chapter 9 - THE MISTRESS WHO LIED
Lauren surrendered at 2:15 that afternoon.
She walked into the Manhattan district attorney’s office carrying Daniel in her arms.
The little boy from the photograph wore a blue coat.
He clutched the toy airplane against his chest.
Marcus was not with them.
Lauren’s attorney immediately requested immunity.
Detective Ortiz refused.
Lauren had entered the storage vault.
She had helped conceal stolen money.
She had sent Matthew information about my movements.
She had also known he intended to destroy the servers.
But Lauren possessed something the police needed.
Matthew’s private recordings.
For three years, she had saved every message he sent.
Every threat.
Every promise.
Every instruction.
She claimed she began recording him after Daniel was born.
“I knew one day he would decide we were inconvenient.”
Lauren sat across from me inside a secure conference room.
A bruise darkened the corner of her mouth.
Her blond hair had been pulled back.
Without the designer clothes and careful makeup, she looked younger.
Smaller.
Frightened.
My mother remained beside me.
Detective Ortiz stood near the door.
“Did you know he was going to attack me?”
I asked.
Lauren looked down.
“I knew he was angry.”
“That was not my question.”
“He said he was going home to frighten you.”
“With a cane?”
“I did not know about the cane.”
“Did you tell him I checked the garage cameras?”
“Yes.”
The answer struck harder than I expected.
“You wanted him to confront me.”
“I wanted him to leave you.”
“So you sent him home drunk and furious.”
“I did not think he would do that.”
I leaned forward despite the pain in my ribs.
“You did not care what he did as long as he came back to you.”
Lauren’s eyes filled with tears.
“I believed everything he told me.”
“So did I.”
The room went silent.
For one moment, we were not wife and mistress.
We were two women who had allowed the same man to rewrite reality around us.
Then I remembered the message found on Matthew’s phone.
“You told him you did your part.”
Lauren wiped her cheek.
“He ordered me to call the hospital.”
“Why?”
“To tell the doctors you had a history of psychiatric episodes.”
My stomach turned.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
My mother stood.
“You tried to have my daughter committed?”
Lauren flinched.
“I called anonymously.”
“That does not make it better.”
“No.”
Lauren looked at me.
“It does not.”
Detective Ortiz placed a recorder on the table.
“Where is Matthew?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is Marcus Vale?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why was Marcus protecting your son?”
“Because Matthew threatened to make Daniel disappear.”
“What does that mean?”
Lauren’s mouth trembled.
“He created a second identity for him.”
She removed a flash drive from her purse.
“One identity makes Daniel my son.”
“The other lists him as the adopted child of a couple in Switzerland.”
My father’s attorneys had warned us about offshore identity operations.
NexusCore’s verification system could make forged records appear legitimate across multiple databases.
Matthew had not merely stolen money.
He had built a machine capable of erasing people.
Lauren pushed the drive toward Ortiz.
“The entire system is on there.”
“What is it called?”
“Project Janus.”
“Who has access?”
“Matthew.”
“Anyone else?”
Lauren looked at Daniel.
“Marcus.”
The conference room door opened.
An assistant district attorney entered carrying a printed report.
“The recovered servers are readable.”
Relief moved through the room.
“But there is a problem.”
He placed the report in front of Ortiz.
“Someone accessed them remotely twelve minutes ago.”
“Matthew?”
“We cannot confirm.”
“Was anything deleted?”
“No.”
The prosecutor looked at me.
“Something was added.”
A video file had appeared in the archive.
It showed Marcus Vale tied to a chair.
Blood covered the side of his face.
Matthew stood behind him.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Clare, you have something that belongs to me.”
He pressed a gun against Marcus’s head.
“Bring the original trust documents to the Southampton house before midnight.”
May you like
His smile was calm.
“Come alone, or Marcus disappears as easily as your name did.”
