The Other Donnelly
Chapter 06 - The Other Donnelly
Diane arrived at Claire’s house on Wednesday carrying a casserole and no apology.
She rang the bell twice, then used her key before Claire could reach the stairs.
The lock turned beneath Diane’s hand.
Claire stood on the landing with Oliver against her hip.
“You can’t come in like that.”
Diane stepped inside and shook rain from a black umbrella.
“Marcus gave me a key for emergencies.”
“This isn’t one.”
“You haven’t returned my calls.”
“You haven’t apologized.”
Diane’s gaze touched the fading bruise, then moved away.
“I brought chicken divan.”
Claire looked at the glass dish covered in foil.
“Did the casserole hit me too?”
Diane’s mouth tightened.
“The accountant jokes now.”
“The accountant changed the lock code yesterday.”
For the first time, Diane looked uncertain.
Only for a second.
“I came to see my grandson.”
“You came without asking.”
“Family shouldn’t need appointments.”
Claire shifted Oliver higher.
“Family shouldn’t need witnesses either.”
The baby grabbed a strand of Claire’s hair and pulled.
She gently freed it from his fist.
Diane glanced past her toward the hall.
“Where’s Marcus?”
“Working.”
“And you’re home.”
“I work from home on Wednesdays.”
“So convenient.”
Claire turned her ring three times.
“Leave the casserole. Give me the key.”
Diane removed it from her key ring with slow, offended precision.
Then Oliver smiled at her.
The change in Diane was small but real. Her shoulders softened, and she touched one finger to his socked foot.
“Hello, darling boy.”
Oliver kicked once.
For half a minute, Diane looked like any grandmother standing in a narrow Evanston hallway, damp from the rain and hungry for a baby’s recognition.
Then her eyes moved toward Claire’s office door.
“May I wash my hands?”
“The bathroom is upstairs, first door.”
“I remember.”
Diane handed Claire the casserole and climbed the stairs.
Claire watched until she disappeared.
The bathroom door closed.
Water ran.
Then stopped.
No toilet flushed.
Claire set the dish on the floor, opened the baby monitor app on her phone, and tapped the camera she had installed in the office after Sunday dinner.
Diane appeared on screen.
She entered without turning on the light. She checked the desk drawer, the file cabinet, and the shelf where Claire kept tax reference manuals.
Efficient. Practiced.
Claire recorded the feed.
Diane opened an empty document box, ran her fingers beneath the desk, and even checked the back of a framed photograph.
She found nothing.
The cream folder was in Rebecca’s office safe.
Claire waited at the foot of the stairs.
Diane came down less than four minutes later.
“Your faucet drips,” she said.
“I’ll add it to the maintenance account.”
Their eyes met.
Diane knew she had been caught. Claire knew she would never admit it.
“Tell Marcus I stopped by.”
“I’ll show him.”
Diane paused.
“Show him what?”
“The casserole.”
Claire smiled.
Diane left without asking to hold Oliver.
---
At the Hale house that afternoon, Diane sat at Everett’s old desk with the door locked.
The room smelled of leather bindings and the cedar smoke that clung to the fireplace stone. She placed both palms on the blotter and stared at a blank legal pad.
Claire had moved the documents.
Worse, Claire had expected her to search.
Diane picked up the phone and called a number Harold Price had once used during a background check for foundation staff.
A man named Kent Voss answered.
“I need a discreet review,” Diane said.
“Employment?”
“Family.”
“That usually costs more.”
“It won’t be complicated.”
She gave him Claire’s full maiden name, date of birth, college, employer, and childhood address in Rockford.
“What are you looking for?” Kent asked.
“Debt. Affairs. Complaints.”
Diane lowered her voice.
“Anything she hid before the marriage.”
“You expect something specific?”
Diane looked toward the locked drawer where she had placed the cream folder.
“People don’t work that hard to appear clean unless they’re covering dirt.”
Kent did not answer.
“What?” Diane said.
“Nothing. I’ll call when I have something.”
She ended the call.
On the desk sat a photograph of Marcus at twelve, smiling beside Everett on the front steps. Diane picked it up and rubbed dust from the glass with her thumb.
She had protected that boy through hospital corridors, funeral arrangements, and men in suits explaining how little control a widow actually had.
Claire saw numbers.
Diane saw what numbers could take away.
---
Claire showed Marcus the office recording after dinner.
He watched his mother search the desk twice.
The second time, he muted the phone.
“She shouldn’t have done that,” he said.
“No.”
“But filming her without telling her feels...”
“Finish the sentence.”
“Hostile.”
Claire stared at him.
Oliver slept in the next room. A spoon tapped against the inside of the dishwasher as the spray cycle started.
“Your mother entered our home with a key I revoked, lied about washing her hands, and searched my office.”
“I said she was wrong.”
“You also found a way to make my camera the problem.”
Marcus stood.
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“A side.”
“This isn’t that simple.”
“It became simple when she raised her hand.”
He walked to the window.
Claire watched his reflection in the dark glass.
“I spoke to Harold,” she said.
Marcus turned.
“What did he tell you?”
“That he’s been waiting for someone to ask about the trust.”
“You had no right.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The first clear position you’ve taken.”
Marcus left the room.
Claire did not follow.
---
Three days later, Kent Voss called Diane while she was having her hair washed at a salon on Green Bay Road.
She stepped into the coat room, a white towel wrapped around her head.
“What did you find?”
“Claire Donnelly is clean.”
“No one is clean.”
“Good credit. No criminal record. No prior marriage.”
Kent turned a page.
“No hidden property. Student loans paid before the wedding.”
Diane gripped the phone.
“Keep looking.”
“I did find something about her father.”
Diane went still.
“Patrick Donnelly?”
“He worked construction and finish carpentry around the North Shore in the nineties.”
“That isn’t news.”
“One employer listed him on a renovation permit for your Sheridan Road property.”
The coat room seemed suddenly too warm.
“When?”
“Thirty years ago. Original estate renovation, west wing and guest house.”
Diane pressed her fingers against the painted wall.
“Was he inside the main house?”
“The permit doesn’t say.”
“Find out.”
“Mrs. Hale, is there something specific about that renovation?”
“No.”
She answered too quickly.
Kent heard it.
Diane lowered her voice.
May you like
“Find out what Patrick Donnelly saw in my house.”
Keep reading Part 7 — because Marcus’s childhood memory of Teresa Volkov ties the dead nurse directly to the secret Diane has guarded for eleven years.
