Chapter 3 - The Flight
I showed my father the message.
“You planned this morning down to the minute,” I said.
He read it without blinking. “Daniel should have contacted me first.”
“Is there anything you’re sorry about?”
“Yes. That this happened in public.”
That answer settled something in me. I walked to the airline desk, canceled my seat, and told the agent Chloe could decide what she wanted to do with hers.
She followed me out of the lounge.
“I want to explain,” she said.
“Did you know about Lucy?”
“I knew there might be a child. Richard said the mother had accepted a settlement. My father believed him.”
“And you?”
“I asked Richard for proof. He told me his lawyers had it.”
“You married me anyway.”
Chloe looked down at her ring. “I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe you’d have told me if there were any chance it was true.”
Valerie came out with Lucy beside her. I stepped aside to let them pass.
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” I told Valerie. “But I want to help. Your lawyer can set the terms.”
“You think one canceled flight changes three years?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Lucy stopped in front of me. “Why aren’t you going on your plane?”
I knelt. “I have something I need to do here.”
She considered that. “Cloud has lots of things to do.”
“I bet she does.”
Valerie gently took her hand. They walked toward the elevators without looking back.
Chloe’s phone rang. Her father’s name appeared on the screen.
She ignored it.
“My family owns a piece of Sterling Holdings,” she said. “There’s a board meeting Friday. Your father needs our votes to approve a sale.”
“What does that have to do with Lucy?”
“I don’t know yet. But he insisted we leave the country today, and he wouldn’t tell me why.”
My own phone rang next. It was Owen Bell, my father’s attorney.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“JFK.”
“Put your father on.”
“He’s nearby. What is it?”
Owen was silent long enough for me to hear papers moving on his desk.
“Before you speak to Ms. Rios again,” he said, “you need to see a document your father filed yesterday.”
“What document?”
“An affidavit. It has your signature on it.”
I stared down the corridor where Valerie and Lucy had disappeared.
May you like
“I didn’t sign anything yesterday.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Owen replied.
