Chapter 28
She looked uncomfortable.
“What?”
“Your mother’s estate files were not all transferred here.”
Alexander frowned.
“I was told they were.”
“No, sir.”
Mrs. Chen walked to a computer terminal.
“Several boxes were removed from the archive in 2018.”
“By whom?”
She typed.
Then went still.
“What is it?” Dana asked.
Mrs. Chen turned the screen toward us.
The authorization form contained a familiar name.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Richard Sterling.
For a moment, I could only stare.
My ex-husband had accessed Margaret Vance’s private estate records six years before our divorce.
Before he stole my mother’s storage box.
Before he claimed to know nothing about my past.
Before he told me I was nobody.
“He knew,” I whispered.
Alexander came closer.
“He may have known something.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
Memories were rearranging themselves.
Richard insisting on a prenup.
Richard asking oddly specific questions about my childhood.
Richard once asking whether I had any family documents from before foster care.
Richard encouraging me not to investigate my parents because it would “only bring up pain.”
My hand went to my mouth.
“He didn’t marry me without knowing who I was.”
Dana’s expression became grave.
“Clara, don’t jump ahead.”
“I remember.”
“What?”
“Two months after we started dating, Richard took me to dinner and asked about my mother.”
Alexander watched me carefully.
“What did he ask?”
“Whether she had ever worked in corporate law.”
The room went silent.
“I thought it was random. He said he’d heard there was a Bennett family connected to a law firm.”
Dana whispered, “He knew.”
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
My marriage suddenly looked different.
Not every smile.
Not every memory.
I refused to let one discovery erase three years of my own lived experience.
But the beginning?
The beginning was no longer what I thought it had been.
Alexander’s face hardened.
“We need the rest of the archive access records.”
Mrs. Chen nodded.
“I’ll pull them.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“I need something else first.”
“What?” Dana asked.
I looked at Alexander.
“My life has been people finding things out about me before I do.”
He nodded slowly.
“So no lawyers rushing ahead without telling me. No investigators hiding reports. No secret protection.”
“I agree.”
“I want to know everything Richard accessed.”
“You will.”
“And then I want to decide what we do.”
Alexander gave a small nod.