Chapter 5 - The First Wife
Lucas never answered.
He ended the call.
At 2:13 in the morning, Willow received a text from an unknown number.
DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING.
A second message followed.
MY NAME IS AMANDA REED.
Willow’s heart stopped.
Amanda.
Lucas’s first wife.
They had met only once.
Briefly.
At a charity luncheon three months after Willow’s wedding.
Amanda had looked at her with an expression Willow had mistaken for bitterness.
Now she wondered if it had been pity.
The next message arrived.
HE MARRIED ME FOR A REASON TOO.
Michael wanted Willow to ignore it until morning.
Willow refused.
Thirty minutes later, they met Amanda at an all-night diner near Lincoln Park.
Amanda arrived in a wool coat and baseball cap.
She looked nothing like the polished woman in Sterling family photographs.
She sat down.
“Did Lucas hit you?”
Willow’s face hardened.
“How do you know?”
“Six hundred people know.”
Amanda looked ashamed.
“And because he hit me once too.”
Michael’s jaw tightened.
Amanda continued.
“I left the next morning.”
Willow stared at her.
“Richard said you left because you couldn’t handle the family.”
Amanda gave a bitter laugh.
“Richard tells that story because the truth makes them look worse.”
She reached into her bag.
She placed a small recorder on the table.
“I started recording them during the divorce.”
Willow’s pulse quickened.
Amanda pressed play.
Richard’s younger voice filled the diner.
“She knows nothing about Catherine.”
Then Lucas.
“We’re not even dating yet.”
Richard again.
“Then start.”
Willow stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“You want the voting block secured, don’t you?”
Lucas sounded irritated.
“I’m not marrying some mechanic’s daughter because of a dead woman’s paperwork.”
Richard replied immediately.
“You’ll marry whoever protects this family.”
Amanda stopped the recording.
Willow could hear the refrigerator humming behind the counter.
She could hear Michael breathing.
Nothing else.
“How old is this?”
“Six years.”
One year before Willow met Lucas.
Amanda looked directly at her.
“I found Catherine Donovan’s name in Richard’s files while Lucas and I were married.”
“I didn’t understand everything.”
“But I understood enough.”
She slid a flash drive across the table.
“Lucas did not meet you by accident.”
Willow stared at it.
May you like
Amanda’s final words were barely a whisper.
“And that isn’t the worst thing on there.”
