Chapter 4
Marcus Holloway stood on my porch in a gray sport coat with the particular stiffness of a man who had agreed to this meeting under duress from his wife and had spent the drive over rehearsing denials he would not get a chance to use. Patricia stood beside him, folder in hand, her face arranged into the specific calm of someone who has rehearsed this confrontation in her head more times than she could count and was determined not to let her voice shake when it finally happened for real.
Claire made a sound behind me that was not quite a word.
"Patricia," she said.
"You know my name," Patricia said. "That's interesting, since Marcus told me you two had barely spoken at the conference."
I stepped back to let them into the foyer. Claire had retreated to the bottom of the staircase, one hand on the banister, the color still gone from her face, looking at Marcus with an expression that confirmed everything I'd already known and had simply been waiting, patiently, for her to confirm out loud.
"Daniel," she said, turning to me. "Whatever you think you know—"
"I found the test eleven days ago, Claire." I kept my voice level. "Two lines. Hidden in the hotel towel in your suitcase. I've known since the morning after you got home."
The room went very still.
Marcus found his voice first, the instinct of a man whose entire professional life had trained him to fill silence with reassurance. "This is — look, this doesn't have to be complicated. We're all adults here."
"Adults," Patricia repeated, opening her folder. "That's an interesting word for what you've been doing for the last eight months, Marcus." She pulled out a single page and held it toward him without handing it over, close enough for him to see his own credit card statement, the boutique charges circled in red. "Tell me again about the client gifts."
I watched Claire's face as she processed that detail — eight months, not one trip, not one slip. Whatever story she'd been telling herself about what this was had just been corrected in real time by a woman with better evidence than her own.
May you like
"I'm pregnant," Claire said, to the room, in a voice that had lost all of its earlier softness. "I don't know what you all think this accomplishes."
"I think it accomplishes a paternity test," I said. "Which I've already arranged. I made an appointment for next Tuesday. I'd like all four of us to be very clear before that appointment about whose name goes on which line of which form."
