Divorced and Desired

Chapter 8: The Photograph

Richard didn't reach for the phone.

He locked eyes on it like it might go off if he touched it, his hands flat on the desk, knuckles whitening against the old wood. Outside, the delivery truck finally pulled away from the curb, its engine fading into the general hum of Marrow Street traffic, and for a long moment the office held nothing but the sound of rain starting up again against the window.

"Richard." Claire's voice stayed low, careful, the way you'd talk to someone standing too close to a ledge. "Did you take that photograph?"

He didn't answer right away. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost the steady calm she'd leaned on all morning.

"Yes," he said. "I took it. Fifteen years ago."

Claire's chest went tight and cold. "You knew Margaret's sister?"

"Her name was Isa." Richard dragged a hand over his mouth, like he could physically push the words back in if he tried hard enough. "She wasn't just Margaret's sister, Claire. She was your mother's closest friend growing up. I photographed the two of them together more times than I can count. That picture in the West Wing—the one with the face cut out—I took it at a fundraiser. Your father is standing next to her."

"My father." Claire's mind raced to keep up, pieces sliding into place too fast to hold onto. "The face that was cut out. That was my father?"

"I don't know. I never saw the original before someone destroyed it." Richard's jaw locked. "Isa vanished eight months before your parents' accident. Everyone assumed she had run off with a married man, some scandal nobody wanted to be attached to the Sterling name. Margaret never spoke of her again. I always thought it was strange timing. I never had proof it meant anything more than a family embarrassment nobody wanted to revisit."

"And now someone's sending me photos with details only you and I would recognize." Claire's pulse kicked hard. "Richard, who else knew you took that picture?"

"That's what scares me." He finally looked up, and for the first time she saw real fear behind his eyes, not caution dressed up as wisdom—fear. "Almost no one. I never told anyone I still had that photo, let alone that Margaret kept a copy in her own safe."

Claire's phone buzzed again. Another text, same unknown number.

You're running out of time to figure out who your friends really are, Claire. Dinner tonight might help. Ask Alexander who he's bringing to the Ellery reception.

She read it twice, then looked up at Richard. "What's the Ellery reception?"

"Charity dinner. Big one, the city's whole business circle turns out for it." Richard's brow creased. "Sterling Group's hosting a table this year. I assumed you already knew."

"Alexander didn't mention it." Claire's jaw set hard. "Of course he didn't."

---

She went home to change, because whatever else was unraveling around her, she was not about to walk into the Ellery reception looking like a woman who'd spent the night hiding in a locked hallway and the morning discovering her husband's family kept a photograph of her own father in it.

By the time the car pulled up outside the Grand Wyndmere Hotel that evening, the rain had stopped, leaving the streets slick and gleaming under strings of white lights, the air sharp and cold enough that Claire's breath fogged faintly as she stepped out. The scent of rain still clung to the hot asphalt beneath the valet stand, mixing with perfume and cigarette smoke drifting from a cluster of guests near the entrance.

Alexander was already inside the Ellery Room, and he wasn't alone.

Claire spotted them from across the ballroom—Alexander in a dark suit, laughing at something, and beside him, one hand resting far too comfortably on his forearm, a woman Claire had only seen in photographs until tonight.

Vanessa Reed carried herself like someone who had spent years perfecting exactly how to enter a room. Dark hair swept back, red dress cut to draw every eye, a smile that looked warm from a distance and calculating up close. She said something low into Alexander's ear, and he laughed again, easy, unguarded, in a way Claire hadn't seen from him in months.

Claire kept walking, chin level, shoulders back, the same posture she'd drilled into herself through seven years of rooms exactly like this one.

Margaret intercepted her before she reached the table. "You're late."

"Traffic," Claire said.

"Of course." Margaret's eyes cut past her, toward Alexander and Vanessa, something unreadable crossing her face. "Vanessa's back in Silvercrest. She'll be joining us tonight."

"So I see."

"Claire," Margaret's voice dropped, quieter now, almost careful. "Whatever you think you know, whatever you heard last night, I need you to be smart about tonight. This is not the place."

Claire froze. "What did you hear?"

Margaret didn't answer. She simply turned, moving toward her husband across the room, leaving Claire standing alone at the edge of the crowd, the string quartet tuning up somewhere behind her, glasses clinking, laughter rising and falling around tables full of people who had no idea what was buried under the floorboards of the house, half of them had visited a hundred times.

Alexander finally noticed her. He crossed the room, Vanessa trailing a step behind, and for a moment the three of them stood together in an awkward, charged triangle that the whole room seemed to sense without quite understanding why.

"Claire." Alexander's voice was too bright, too rehearsed. "You remember Vanessa."

"We've never actually met," Claire said, holding out her hand, steady and cool. "Just heard the name. A lot, lately."

Vanessa's smile sharpened at the edges as she seized Claire's hand, her grip firm, deliberate. "Funny. I could say the same about you."

Behind Vanessa's shoulder, across the ballroom, Claire caught sight of a man she didn't recognize, watching their small, tense circle with far too much interest for a stranger—until he lifted his phone, angled it toward them, and took a picture.

Then he turned, and Claire watched him walk straight toward Margaret and Edward's table, lean down, and whisper something that made Edward's wine glass stop halfway to his mouth.