“Before you started questioning me?”
“Yes.”
“How did she explain having them?”
“She said someone she knew worked with people connected to your firm.”
“That didn’t seem strange?”
“At the time, no.”
“Why?”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
“Because she had already shown me the photos from Richmond.”
“The ones where Elliot’s wife was standing three feet away?”
His eyes lifted.
“I didn’t know that.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I saw what I saw.”
“No. You saw what Talia showed you.”
He looked away.
I leaned forward.
“What exactly did she say about the baby?”
Grant’s face changed.
He did not want to answer.
“Tell me.”
“Maren.”
“Tell me.”
He looked at the table.
“She asked when you got pregnant.”
“You know when.”
“I thought I did.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She said the timing overlapped with the Richmond conference.”
I stared at him.
“That conference happened after I was already pregnant.”
“I know that now.”
A strange laugh escaped me.
Not because anything was funny.
“You know that now?”
“She told me pregnancies are dated differently than people think.”
“And you never asked the doctor?”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“No.”
I felt tears burning behind my eyes.
“You weren’t thinking about me at all.”
Grant’s face tightened.
“I was angry.”
“You told a seven-month-pregnant woman that her baby might belong to someone else because your girlfriend did bad calendar math.”
“She wasn’t my girlfriend then.”
The words came too quickly.
I stared at him.
Grant realized the mistake.
“When did she become your girlfriend?”
“Maren—”
“When?”
He looked away.
“After I started believing you were involved with Elliot.”
“That’s not a date.”
“About three weeks ago.”
“So while we were still living together.”
“We were barely speaking.”
“We were married.”
“I thought you had betrayed me.”
“You thought.”
My voice broke.
“You thought, Grant.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
I stood.
“I asked you what was wrong.”
He remained silent.
“I showed you my phone.”
Nothing.
“I told you where I was.”
Nothing.
“I answered every question.”
His eyes opened.
“And while I was trying to figure out why my husband had suddenly become suspicious of everything I did, you were discussing my pregnancy with a woman who hated me before you ever met her.”
Grant froze.
“What?”
That was the moment I realized he truly did not know.
I sat back down.
“Talia’s father was Martin Monroe.”
Grant stared at me blankly.
“Who?”
I told him.
The internship.
The structural documents.
The investigation.
The old photograph.
The young woman in the red coat.
Grant’s face slowly lost color.
“She never told me that.”
“Of course she didn’t.”
“She said she met you at the charity dinner.”
“She lied.”
He looked genuinely shaken.
For one dangerous second, the old part of me wanted to comfort him.
Then I remembered my boxes on the lawn.
Grant whispered, “Why would she do this?”
I looked at him.
“Ask her.”
He did.
I know because Talia called me that night.
I didn’t answer.
She called again.
Then she sent a message.
You’re making a mistake.
I stared at the screen.
Another arrived.
Grant is upset and confused. You should stop turning this into something bigger.
I almost admired the audacity.
Then came the third.
Your marriage had problems long before I came along.
That one made me respond.
I typed three words.
Don’t contact me.
Then I blocked her.
Grant did not call again for two days.
When he finally did, his voice sounded different.
“She lied.”
I was sitting at Delaney’s kitchen table.
“About what?”
“Her father.”
I said nothing.
“She told me you deliberately got him fired because he refused to recommend you for a paid internship.”
I closed my eyes.
“That never happened.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“I found the old records.”
I waited.
Grant continued.
“Your name is barely mentioned.”
“Because I was an intern.”
“The internal report says discrepancies were confirmed by multiple reviewers.”
“Yes.”
“It says Martin admitted altering portions of supporting documentation.”
“Yes.”
Grant breathed slowly.
“She made it sound like you destroyed her family.”
“I filed documents.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“I do now.”
I looked through Delaney’s window toward the dark street.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because I confronted her.”
I sat straighter.
“And?”
“She said you deserved to know what it felt like to lose your life because of someone else’s decision.”
My skin went cold.
“What else?”
Grant hesitated.
“She said she didn’t make me do anything.”
That hurt because it was true.
“She said she only showed me what I was already willing to believe.”
I swallowed.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because I realized she was right about one part.”
I waited.
Grant’s voice dropped.
“You kept asking me to trust you.”
I looked down.
“And I decided suspicion felt more convincing.”
Neither of us spoke.
Then Grant said, “I’m sorry.”
It was the first apology.
It did not fix anything.
“I need to go.”
“Maren.”
“What?”
“I never should have changed the locks.”
“No.”
“I never should have said what I said about the baby.”
“No.”
“I want to fix this.”
I closed my eyes.
“You’re talking as though Talia broke something and now we just need to put it back together.”
“I know I made mistakes.”
“Mistakes are forgetting an appointment.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You moved another woman into our bedroom while I was carrying your child.”
Silence.
“You threw my belongings outside.”
More silence.
“You looked at me and asked whether the baby was yours.”
“I know.”
“No, Grant.”
My voice shook.
“You remember doing those things. That is not the same as understanding what they did.”
I ended the call.
For the next two weeks, everything moved strangely fast and unbearably slowly at the same time.
My company completed its internal review.
Elliot and I were cleared of wrongdoing.
The anonymous complaint was formally documented as containing manipulated material.
That mattered because the same manipulated screenshots had been sent to Grant.
Rebecca obtained copies through his attorney.
Side by side, they were identical.
Same fake timestamps.
Same wording.
Same cropped images.
One image included an embarrassing mistake.
In the screenshot supposedly sent by Elliot on a Tuesday evening, the battery percentage and network symbols matched another screenshot exactly.
Not approximately.
Exactly.
The images had been built from the same template.
Caroline’s IT staff documented it.
Grant finally had evidence that the story he had believed was manufactured.
But the biggest piece came from Grant himself.
Talia had been furious after he confronted her about her father.
She left the house.
Then she sent him a series of voice messages.
Grant forwarded them to his attorney.
His attorney forwarded relevant copies to Rebecca.
I listened in her office.
