I could ask Farhadi for a prescription, but I don’t like the idea of being incapacitated. Logan’s company, MadDox, is the best of the best, and I spared no expense on securing the property, but still, I don’t want to be drugged with a wife and small children in the house.
I pour myself a whiskey and collapse into the chair behind my desk. I usually work in the library at night, but I need some space from the site of my most recent skirmish with Cora, so I’ve retired to my office.
Cora and the girls are down for the count. Cora wasn’t when I carried her upstairs—she was faking—but I checked after my shower, and she was snoring softly, still curled in a ball. I guess it’s something that she didn’t startle awake when I checked on her. Her subconscious, at least, doesn’t see me as a threat.
After I shoot the whiskey, I pour myself another. It was good thinking to bring the bottle to my desk.
Cora’s feet are looking a lot better. Farhadi said they’re fine. I still don’t have a clear understanding of what happened.
Schmidt said he was in the other room with the kids. Tiller said she dropped a glass and stepped on it. But how did she get glass in the soles of both feet? Was she running? From what? Tiller said he didn’t see the moment she was injured, but why not? He was in the kitchen with her.
Logan was with me when I called them in, glowering and looking like a pirate with that scar he’s got, but neither Schmidt nor Tiller are easily intimidated. They were exactly the kind of guys you want watching your family. I wish I hadn’t needed to fire them, but Tiller’s time was up the second he grabbed Cora’s hand in that elevator. Schmidt was cooked when he didn’t file an incident report after Cora got hurt.
That woman Pence is done, too. Cora ran circles around her, and somehow managed to come back in Gideon’s car. The Rennard is MIA. Apparently, Cora gave it to the ambulance chaser as a retainer.
Drake Chambers. That can’t be his real name. No one at Nicolet and Burgess has heard of him. Logan is looking into him now. Chambers better pray he’s buried his skeletons deep enough.
I’m actually not that angry about the Rennard. It was a bad choice for a family vehicle. I’ll call the buying service tomorrow and have them get Cora something more sedate. Maybe a Volvo.
Earlier, when I carried her upstairs, she had her pockets shoved full of what felt like rocks. I guess she cleared her jewelry out of the safe. Is she going to try and hock it? She’s not going to get anywhere near a fair price unless she goesto Sotheby’s or Christie’s. If she’s never heard of Gordon Schwartz, what are the odds she knows Sotheby’s?
I’ll tell her at breakfast that her card is reactivated. It was heavy-handed of me—done in a fit of pique when Pence called—but like hell was I going to pay for my wife’s divorce lawyer.
We’re not getting a divorce. She just needs to let me know she’s angry. Soon enough, she’ll feel like she’s made her point, and things will get back to normal.
Cora doesn’t want to be at odds with me. She wants to be protected. Cared for. Guided.
Reaching into my bottom drawer, I take out the file my investigator compiled when I first met Cora. I didn’t use MadDox for the job. I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to take things with her, and I didn’t want the added noise of my brothers’ opinions.
I open the file. On the left are Cora’s school pictures. She has one for every year until fifth grade, when she entered foster care after her grandmother died. Starting in middle school, there are several missing—sixth grade, eighth, eleventh, and twelfth. She gained weight each year, too, until by high school, she didn’t look much like the blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl she’d been, especially with the bad dye jobs. She went through all the colors of the rainbow.
On the right side of the file are copies of her birth certificate, with no father listed, and her mother’s death certificate. Her mother died of a heroin overdose when Cora was an infant. It was probably for the best. Her grandmother seemed to have been a stable influence. Pam Jenkins worked for thirty years as a toll operator, but she retired when she got custody of Cora in order to care for her full time. Pam is probably where Cora learned to be such an attentive mother.
It’s clear that Pam gave Cora a solid foundation in life. Cora’s grades were never good, either before or after Pam’s death, but her attendance and behavior were exemplary. She got a job at a fast-food restaurant as soon as she was eligible for a work permit, and she rose in the ranks to assistant manager by the time the investigator lost track of her a few months before she showed up in New York.
I was always surprised that Cora didn’t work in childcare in Baltimore. She’s such a natural. I suppose she took the job that was offered to her. She’s a practical person. That’s another reason I married her.
There is no way that she didn’t understand our arrangement. If she somehow managed to convince herself that this was a Cinderella story when we were dating, the reality was laid out for her in detail in the prenup, and she initialed each clause. Why is she acting like she got hit by a bus out of nowhere?
On a whim, I pick up the phone and dial Logan. He answers on the second ring.
“Talk to me,” he says.
That’s Logan. Born ready.
“Did you run a background check on Cora when we got together?”
Logan takes a beat before he answers. “If I say yes, are you gonna kick my ass?”
I figured as much. Logan is a security guy to his bones. No one gets close to our family without vetting, not after the experience he had with that bitch in college who tried to ruin his life.
“In the report my investigator did, there’s a six-month gap from the spring of Cora’s senior year until the fall when she comes to New York.”
Logan grunts. “I just pulled up our report. I’m looking at it now.”
“What do you have for that time period?”
“What do you suspect?” he asks.
