PART 4 (THE END)

Claire read the final sentence until the words blurred.

If Claire discovers this, tell her the archive contains the reason Adrian married her.

The apartment seemed to hold its breath around her.

Emily reached for the page. “Claire?”

Claire handed it over.

Her sister read silently, then looked up with an expression that held more sorrow than surprise.

“That can’t be the whole reason,” Emily said.

“No,” Claire replied. “But it may be part of it.”

For three years, Claire had tried to understand what Adrian had seen when he proposed. He had been attentive, patient, and almost disarmingly sincere. He had listened when she spoke about architecture and old houses. He had remembered the names of her grandmother’s flowers and the stories behind the furniture in her childhood home.

Then, after the wedding, pieces of that man had disappeared.

Or perhaps they had never existed in the way Claire believed.

She folded the page carefully.

“We’re going to Lake Briar.”

“After we show this to Daniel.”

“Yes.”

“And after we tell him about the person outside the apartment.”

Claire nodded.

Daniel answered on the second ring. By midnight, he had arranged for a private security consultant to check the building’s entrances and had instructed Claire not to travel without notifying him. He also sent copies of the transfer agreement to a specialist in estate and trust law.

At nine the next morning, the specialist called.

“The agreement appears genuine,” she said. “The language is unusual, but the condition is clear. Adrian could not reclaim the property if you left the marriage after discovering the concealment.”

“Why would he agree to that?”

“Perhaps he wanted to give you an exit.”

Claire looked at Emily, who was standing beside the window.

“Then why conceal it?”

“That is something you must ask him.”

Claire had spent most of the night trying not to imagine the answer.

By ten, she, Emily, and Daniel were on the road to Wisconsin.

The city thinned into winter fields and bare trees. Snow rested in the ditches and along the fence lines, bright under a pale sky. Claire sat in the back seat with the documents in a leather folder on her lap.