Chapter 7 - The First Wife
Claire did not open the envelope until Noah was asleep in Rachel’s guest room.
The house was quiet except for the refrigerator humming downstairs and the small white-noise machine beside the portable crib.
Rachel sat across from Claire on the bed.
“I was afraid you’d tell Grant,” Rachel said.
“Why would she write to you?”
“Because you stopped answering me.”
Claire flinched.
Rachel looked away. “I’m not saying that to blame you.”
Claire turned the envelope over.
The return address was in Colorado.
Name: Emily Hart.
Grant had told Claire his first marriage lasted eleven months and ended because Emily had an affair.
Claire opened the letter.
It was three pages, handwritten.
Emily began with an apology for intruding. Then she wrote that she had seen Claire and Grant’s pregnancy announcement online through a mutual acquaintance.
She had waited until the baby was born because she did not want to cause stress during the pregnancy.
Then came the sentence that made Claire’s skin prickle.
If Grant starts telling people you are unstable, please do not assume it is random.
Claire stopped reading.
Rachel whispered, “Keep going.”
Emily described a pattern.
Grant recorded arguments but only after provoking them.
He told friends she forgot things she knew she remembered.
He persuaded her to see a doctor for anxiety, then asked the doctor to document “episodes.”
His mother attended appointments without being invited.
There had been no baby in Emily’s marriage.
But there had been a dog—an elderly golden retriever Emily loved.
During their separation, Grant took the dog to Diane’s house and refused to return him until Emily signed a financial agreement.
Claire lowered the pages.
“He practiced on a dog,” she whispered.
Rachel’s eyes filled with tears.
The final page included a phone number and one request:
Please call me before you confront him. He is most dangerous when he thinks the story is slipping away from him.
Claire looked at the clock.
2:18 a.m.
She should have waited.
Instead, she called.
Emily answered on the second ring.
“Claire?”
Her voice sounded wide awake.
“Yes.”
Emily exhaled as if she had been waiting for months.
“Are you safe?”
“For tonight.”
“And the baby?”
“With me.”
“Good.”
Claire pressed the phone tighter to her ear.
“Why did he do this to you?”
May you like
Emily was quiet for a long moment.
Then she said, “Because I found out what Diane did to Grant’s father.”
