Chapter 4 - THE LETTER THAT NEVER REACHED ME
"A letter?"
I looked at Ethan.
He looked just as confused as I felt.
"What letter?"
Vivian held his gaze.
"The one you wrote six weeks after Claire disappeared."
The room became painfully quiet.
I remembered those weeks.
I'd been living above a laundromat outside Milwaukee, working mornings and vomiting almost every afternoon.
I had no money for a proper winter coat.
My wedding ring sat in a kitchen drawer because I couldn't bear to look at it.
Every night, I checked my phone.
Not because I wanted Ethan back.
Because some part of me still hoped he'd ask whether I was alive.
He never did.
Now Vivian was telling me there had been a letter.
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"I gave Mother an envelope addressed to Claire."
Margaret lowered herself into a chair.
"You were drunk when you wrote it."
"I was grieving."
"You were furious."
"Because you told me Claire had run away with another man."
My head snapped toward Margaret.
"What?"
Ethan looked at me.
"Mother said she'd discovered messages between you and a man in Milwaukee."
I felt the room tilt.
"I didn't even know anyone in Milwaukee before I left."
Ethan shut his eyes.
For ten years, he'd believed I betrayed him.
For ten years, I'd believed he discarded me without hesitation.
And both beliefs had been convenient for Margaret.
"Did you ever see those messages?" I asked.
Ethan shook his head.
"She said she'd destroyed them to spare me."
I laughed once.
It was an ugly sound.
"How thoughtful."
Margaret looked miserable.
"I was trying to stop you from chasing Claire into danger."
"You could have told me the truth," Ethan said.
"And if you had gone after her, Raymond would have known exactly where to find her."
Vivian opened her handbag again.
This time, she removed an envelope.
Yellowed.
Creased.
Sealed with an old-fashioned red wax stamp.
My name was written across the front.
CLAIRE SULLIVAN.
I recognized Ethan's handwriting immediately.
Even after ten years.
"Where did you get that?" he asked.
Vivian glanced at Margaret.
"Your mother kept it in her desk. I took it when I left her employment."
Margaret looked up sharply.
"You stole from me?"
Vivian's voice shook.
"I stole one envelope. You stole ten years."
She handed it to me.
I couldn't open it.
My hands were trembling too badly.
Ethan looked toward the floor.
"You don't have to read it."
"Yes," I whispered. "I do."
I broke the seal.
Inside was a single page.
The handwriting was uneven.
Claire,
I don't know whether you'll read this.
I know I said things that cannot be taken back. I know I made you feel unwanted.
Mother says you've found someone else. I want to believe she's lying, but I don't know what to believe anymore.
I keep remembering the night you told me you wanted a little house with a yellow kitchen and a garden.
You said you'd fill it with children and noise.
I laughed because I couldn't imagine myself as a father.
I would give anything to hear you laugh in that kitchen again.
If you want a divorce, I won't fight you.
But if you need help, tell me.
I know I failed you.
Ethan.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
It wasn't enough.
It didn't erase the rain, the money, or the humiliation.
But it meant he had regretted what happened.
It meant the silence I'd lived with had not been entirely his choice.
I folded the paper.
"Why didn't you give this to me?" I asked Margaret.
She stared at the carpet.
"Because I knew you'd answer."
Ethan turned away.
He walked to the window and stood with both hands against the frame.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then he asked, "What happened on the night Claire left?"
Margaret looked up.
"What do you mean?"
"You were inside the house. You told me she'd been stealing foundation records. You told me she was meeting another man. You told me she'd been lying to me."
He turned around.
"How much of that was true?"
Margaret's mouth trembled.
"She had been looking at the foundation records."
"Because I asked her to help," Ethan replied.
I stared at him.
"You knew?"
"Of course. I wanted you to have something meaningful to do beyond attending dinners with people you hated."
A painful memory surfaced.
Ethan smiling when I said I liked the foundation work.
Ethan promising I'd have my own office.
Margaret bringing me coffee the afternoon I found those strange payments.
Then telling Ethan I'd betrayed him.
The pieces were shifting.
But one remained missing.
"Who made you throw me out?" I asked.
Ethan's expression darkened.
"Nobody made me."
Margaret whispered his name.
He ignored her.
"I was angry. I believed lies. But those words were mine."
He looked at me directly.
"I threw that money at you, Claire. Whatever anyone else did, I chose that cruelty."
For the first time that evening, I believed something he said without reservation.
Not because it excused him.
Because he wasn't trying to excuse himself.
Vivian cleared her throat.
"There's a reason Margaret hasn't told you everything."
She turned to Ethan.
"Raymond Kessler didn't just want Claire gone. He wanted control of the foundation."
Ethan frowned.
"He already supervised its finances."
"Not all of them."
Vivian opened her notebook to a marked page.
"Your father created a separate charitable trust. It was meant to provide support for the children of Sullivan family employees who were killed or injured."
"I know about that trust," Ethan said.
"Then you know its trustee was required to report annually to the beneficiaries."
"Yes."
Vivian looked at Margaret.
"Ask your mother why those reports stopped ten years ago."
Margaret gripped her necklace.
Ethan studied her.
"Mother?"
"I signed what Raymond put in front of me."
"What did you sign?"
"A temporary authorization."
Vivian shook her head.
"It wasn't temporary."
Ethan took a step closer.
"Tell me."
Margaret began to cry.
"I thought I was buying time."
"Buying time for what?"
"To get you out of the business. To convince you to sell the dangerous parts of the organization before somebody killed you."
Ethan stared at her.
"And what did Raymond receive in exchange?"
Margaret covered her mouth.
Vivian answered.
"Control of the trust's investments."
"How much?"
Vivian hesitated.
Then she looked at me.
"Claire, remember those three companies you asked about?"
I nodded.
"Raymond used them to divert money from the trust. Your questions threatened to expose him."
Ethan's expression went cold.
"How much money?"
Vivian swallowed.
"More than forty million dollars."
I stared at Margaret.
"You knew?"
She shook her head.
"Not at first."
"And later?"
She couldn't look at me.
Ethan reached for his phone.
But before he could make a call, Lucas entered the room.
His face was grave.
"Claire, the children are fine. But we've got a serious problem."
"What happened?"
Lucas handed me a tablet.
On the screen was a photograph of Noah and Sophie arriving at the gala.
It had already appeared on a national news website.
Beneath it was the headline:
CHICAGO CRIME BOSS CONFRONTED BY SECRET CHILDREN.
Lucas looked at Ethan.
"Raymond Kessler is still listed as a controlling trustee of the Sullivan Children's Foundation."
Ethan nodded grimly.
"Then we'll remove him."
Lucas shook his head.
"You don't understand."
He enlarged a paragraph beneath the photograph.
"Kessler has filed an emergency petition alleging that the children are being used in an extortion attempt against Ethan Sullivan."
My stomach dropped.
May you like
Lucas continued.
"And he's requesting an immediate investigation into their mother's fitness to care for them."
