Chapter 7
Now I realized I might have been listening to a rehearsed lie.
“Did they divorce?”
I asked.
Mr.
Harlan folded his hands.
“That is what your father was trying to confirm.”
“So they could have divorced.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe this means nothing.”
He looked at me with quiet sadness.
“Eleanor, we have searched the records in the jurisdictions where they lived, and we have not found a divorce decree.”
I swallowed.
“Is that proof?”
“Not by itself.
A missing record is not enough to establish that a divorce never occurred.”
He leaned forward.
“But the marriage certificate is genuine, and Caleb never disclosed this marriage to you.”
I looked down at the document again.
Vanessa Lane.
The woman who had smiled at my stomach beside my father’s coffin.
The woman who had told me pregnancy was making me emotional.
The woman who had spent six months being introduced as a business consultant.
She might have been my husband’s legal wife all along.
A violent wave of nausea rose in my throat.
I pressed one hand over my mouth.
Mr.
Harlan poured a glass of water.
I took a small sip.
“How long did Dad know?”
“The consulting payments first drew his attention several weeks ago.”
“What payments?”
“Whitmore Group has a subsidiary that provides investment and acquisition services.
Your husband had authority to recommend outside consultants for certain projects.”
I nodded.
Caleb had joined the company shortly after our wedding.
My father had never made him chief executive, but he had allowed him to work in strategic partnerships.
At the time, I thought it was a generous gesture.
Now I wondered whether my father had wanted to keep him close enough to watch.
“Vanessa’s consulting company received payments that didn’t match the work recorded in its invoices,” Mr.
Harlan explained.
“How much?”
“Enough to require a serious investigation.”
I closed my eyes.
“And that led to the marriage certificate?”
“Your father began examining Caleb’s disclosures and Vanessa’s business history.
Their past relationship emerged during that review.”
I looked at him sharply.
“Why didn’t Dad tell me?”
The question hurt more than I expected.
My father had suspected that my marriage was built on deception.
Yet he had allowed me to continue living with Caleb.
He had allowed me to believe that my husband loved me.
“He intended to speak with you,” Mr.
Harlan said.
“When?”
“He wanted the records verified first, and he knew how much stress you were already under.”