Chapter 5 - You Still Think Like a Lawyer
Grant Whitfield's firm took the top floor of a Park Avenue tower. We'd been classmates at NYU before he went into high-net-worth divorce. In the city's richest circles he had a reputation for being merciless.
I got there ten minutes early in dark glasses and a scarf pulled up over half my face. He poured me sparkling water.
"Tell me everything."
I unlocked my encrypted notes and handed him the phone. He read for almost ten minutes without a word. Then he looked up.
"So your husband had a kid with his mistress, walked it into your house dressed up as an adoption, and now he expects you to raise it."
"That's what the evidence says."
He leaned back. "That's something."
"What do you actually have?"
I showed him the prenatal record. The texts. Damon's travel dates. He went through each one.
"Strong start. Not enough. The medical record proves Camille was pregnant. It doesn't prove Damon's the father. The texts suggest an affair. Paternity and financial misconduct need more."
"Which is why I'm here." I leaned in. "I don't want you filing tomorrow. I want an airtight case first."
A faint smile. "You still think like a lawyer."
"I was never stupid, Grant." I looked at the table. "I was just in love."
He pulled out a legal pad. "Then we need paternity. A forensic trace of his accounts. Communications. His real net worth."
"He's moving assets."
His pen stopped. "Why do you think that?"
"Camille's in the Bahamas. He's setting up trusts. He rushed Theo into the house to lock in his position." I met his eyes. "This isn't a man hiding a girlfriend. Damon's building an exit."
Grant's face went serious. "If he moves real money or Ashford Holdings stock offshore before we file, equitable distribution gets very hard."
"Exactly."
He wrote a name and an address on a card. Silas Rourke. Former financial-crimes investigator, now running a private forensic-accounting shop out of the Flatiron District.
"Go see him. Tell him I sent you."
Silas's office was plain and quiet. He was late fifties, blunt, allergic to drama. He listened, then asked only what mattered.
"Can you get a DNA sample from your husband?"
"Yes."
"The baby?"
"Yes."
"Then paternity's easy." He handed me sterile swabs and kits and walked me through handling them. "What else?"
"I want to know what's being said inside my own house."
He thought about it. "Residential surveillance gets legally messy."
"I understand."
"You're a legal resident with an ownership interest, which gives us room to gather intelligence. But not everything we collect will be admissible."
"I'm not only after courtroom evidence."
"Then what?"
"I need to know what he's planning."
We settled on discreet cameras.
Thursday was perfect. Damon at his office downtown, Vivienne at a bridge afternoon at the country club. I sent Marta two towns over for a special grocery order.
Silas's tech showed up in the uniform of a luxury HVAC company. In a few hours, tiny cameras were placed in the rooms that mattered — Damon's study, the living room, our bedroom, the nursery — all feeding a hidden app on my phone.
That evening Damon came home early and went straight to Theo. I opened the nursery feed. He lifted the baby and paced slowly.
"My son," he whispered. I turned the volume up. "Daddy's building an empire for you. Everything the Ashfords own — it's all going to be yours."
He kissed Theo's forehead.
May you like
My hand shook around the phone. Not from grief. From rage. I'd given up five years of my career to run this family's life. I'd sat there while Vivienne humiliated me for being unable to produce an heir. And Damon had turned me into a respectable front while he built another family in the dark.
I closed the app. Stay calm. React too early and I lose everything.
