Chapter 3 - The Woman in Pink
Caroline remembered Mara Bell from the company Christmas party, where Mara had introduced herself as a design consultant and spent most of the evening laughing with one hand on Luke's sleeve.
She remembered Luke saying Mara touched everyone that way.
She remembered finding a hotel receipt in his coat two weeks later and believing his explanation because disbelief would have required her to rebuild her whole life.
Now Mara stood barefoot in Caroline's kitchen. Her pink heels rested by the back door. She wore small gold earrings shaped like leaves, the same earrings reflected in a photograph Luke had accidentally backed up to their shared tablet three months earlier.
The photograph showed only a woman's cheek against Luke's shoulder. Caroline had asked who she was. Luke had accused Caroline of invading his privacy.
“Of course,” Caroline said. “The consultant.”
Mara's smile flickered. “Luke said you needed ideas for the nursery.”
“Luke says many things.”
Luke closed the refrigerator harder than necessary. “Mara is doing us a favor.”
“Then she can invoice your company.”
Caroline walked past them and climbed the stairs. She could feel their silence behind her. In the bedroom, she locked the door and removed the emergency phone from her handbag.
Hiding it in Aunt Rose's desk was too obvious. Her car could be searched. Luke sometimes went through the laundry under the excuse of helping.
The baby kicked sharply.
Caroline looked toward the window and the backyard beyond it. Rose had taught her to garden there, kneeling in black soil, explaining that the strongest roots were the ones nobody saw.
Near the lilac hedge stood an old ceramic irrigation valve box. Luke never touched it because he considered yard work beneath him.
Caroline waited until Mara's convertible left. Then she carried pruning shears outside and spent twenty minutes trimming dead flowers while Luke watched from the kitchen. When he took a call and turned away, she slipped the phone into a freezer bag, knelt by the valve box, and pushed it beneath the loose soil.
She kept the programmed alert button facing upward.
The hiding place comforted her for less than an hour.
At two in the afternoon, an email arrived from the county recorder. A document had been submitted concerning her property. The attached form appeared to grant Luke durable power of attorney over all real estate decisions if Caroline became medically incapacitated.
Her signature sat at the bottom.
It was almost perfect.
Caroline called Nora from a grocery store parking lot, using the prepaid phone she kept for ordinary emergencies.
“Do not confront him,” Nora said. “Forward everything to me.”
“He already filed it.”
“It has not been accepted. We can flag the record. But Caroline, forging a document like this means he has moved beyond persuasion.”
“What do I do?”
“Leave the house tonight.”
Caroline watched shoppers push carts beneath strings of red advertising flags. The normality of it made her want to cry.
“If I leave, he will find the deed.”
“The deed is replaceable. You are not.”
“There is a packet tied to the sale. I need to know what is in it.”
“Rose wanted it protected, not discovered by you at the cost of your life.”
Caroline closed her eyes. “Can you get me one night?”
Nora was silent.
“One night,” Caroline repeated. “I will photograph everything in the desk and leave tomorrow morning.”
“Then you call me at eight. If you do not call, I send someone.”
“Who?”
“A deputy I trust.”
Caroline returned home to find Diane's white sedan in the driveway.
Inside, Diane and Mara sat at the kitchen island with Luke. A folder lay open between them. They stopped speaking when Caroline entered.
“Another design meeting?” she asked.
Mara stood. “I was just leaving.”
As she passed, Caroline smelled Luke's cedar cologne on her skin.
Caroline turned to him. “You could at least choose a mistress who owns her own perfume.”
Mara stopped.
Luke's face tightened. “You are tired.”
“I am informed.”
Diane folded her hands. “Pregnancy can produce paranoia. Hormonal delusions are more common than people realize.”
“Did pregnancy forge my signature too?”
The folder on the island disappeared beneath Luke's palm.
Caroline saw it happen. So did Mara.
“What signature?” Luke asked.
“The power of attorney filed this morning.”
Diane did not blink. Luke blinked once.
Mara looked from one to the other. “You told me she signed it.”
Luke rounded on her. “Stay out of this.”
“You told me the property transfer was agreed.”
“Mara,” Diane said softly, “go home.”
For the first time, Mara looked afraid of her.
She grabbed her heels and left through the back door. Luke waited until the convertible started before turning to Caroline.
“You embarrassed me in front of an employee.”
“Is that what she is?”
“You are making a difficult financial situation worse because you enjoy control.”
Caroline laughed once. It surprised all three of them.
“You tried to steal my house, and I enjoy control?”
Luke approached. Diane remained seated, watching as if evaluating a negotiation.
“There is no stealing inside a marriage,” Luke said.
“Then why forge my name?”
He reached for her arm. Caroline stepped away.
“Do not touch me.”
Something dangerous passed across his face, fast and naked. Then the front doorbell rang.
Luke stopped.
Caroline answered it and found Deputy Javier Ortega on the porch. He wore a tan county uniform and held a small notebook.
“Mrs. Hale?” he asked. “Your attorney requested a welfare check.”
Luke came behind Caroline, smiling warmly. “Officer, there must be a misunderstanding.”
“Deputy,” Ortega said.
His eyes met Caroline's. She could tell him. She could step outside and never return.
Then Diane spoke from the kitchen. “Caroline has been under tremendous strain with the pregnancy.”
Luke's hand settled lightly at Caroline's back.
She imagined the deed in the desk. Rose's warning. The sealed packet. She imagined Luke destroying all of it before she could learn why her aunt had been afraid.
“I'm all right,” Caroline said.
Ortega did not move. “Are you certain?”
Luke's fingertips pressed between her shoulder blades.
“Yes.”
Ortega tore a page from his notebook and handed it to her. A phone number was written beneath his name.
“If that changes, call me directly.”
Luke closed the door after him.
“That was unnecessary,” he said.
Caroline looked at the number. She had made a mistake by staying. She knew it with the clean certainty of a glass breaking.
May you like
That night, she moved the original deed out of the desk.
She did not tell Nora where she put it.
