THE FIRST WIFE
CHAPTER 4 — THE FIRST WIFE
Nathan had told Claire he had never been married before.
He said it the night they got engaged.
They were sitting on the terrace outside a vineyard restaurant, and Claire had asked because grief had made her direct.
“No wives?” she said.
He smiled.
“Only mistakes.”
She thought that was charming.
People in love forgive arrogance when it comes wrapped as honesty.
Now Claire sat in her own mansion kitchen at one in the morning, holding their newborn son while police photographed foaming milk on the tile, and stared at a picture of her supposedly dead mother beside a woman she did not know.
Marion knew her.
Claire saw it before she said a word.
The attorney’s face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“Who is she?” Claire asked.
Nathan said, “No one.”
Marion looked at him.
“That is always what men say about the woman who can ruin them.”
Claire turned to Marion.
“Who is she?”
Marion lifted the photograph carefully.
“Rebecca Mercer.”
The last name landed first.
Then the rest.
Claire looked at Nathan.
“Mercer?”
Eleanor began crying.
A quiet, broken sound.
“My daughter-in-law,” she whispered. “My first one.”
Claire stepped back.
Oliver fussed.
She rocked him automatically because bodies sometimes know mercy when minds cannot.
Nathan’s voice hardened.
“Rebecca was unstable.”
Marion looked almost bored.
“There’s that word again.”
Nathan’s eyes flashed.
“You have no idea what she did.”
Eleanor’s voice cut through the kitchen.
“She had a baby girl.”
The room went still.
Claire looked from Eleanor to Nathan.
“A baby?”
Eleanor nodded.
“My granddaughter. Emma.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“Mother.”
Eleanor ignored him.
“Rebecca questioned Nathan’s control of her medical records. She questioned Dr. Voss. She questioned why her trust paperwork changed after the birth.”
Claire looked at Voss.
The doctor sat in a chair now, watched by the officer, face gray.
“What happened to her?” Claire asked.
Eleanor’s tears fell.
“She was placed in a private facility.”
Nathan snapped, “She was dangerous.”
“To whom?” Marion asked.
He did not answer.
Claire looked at Eleanor.
“And the baby?”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
“Taken.”
The word made Claire hold Oliver so tightly he squeaked.
She loosened her grip, whispering sorry into his soft hair.
“What do you mean taken?”
Marion answered.
“Nathan obtained emergency custody. Claimed postpartum psychosis, risk to infant, refusal of medical care. Dr. Voss signed the evaluation.”
Voss stared at the floor.
Claire felt sick.
This was not a plan Nathan invented for her.
This was a system he had tested.
“Where is Emma now?” she asked.
Eleanor looked at Nathan.
“With him?”
Nathan laughed once.
“No.”
The laugh was too bitter to be performance.
For the first time all night, pain crossed his face.
Not enough to soften him.
Enough to complicate the monster.
Marion said quietly, “Emma disappeared from a supervised family placement six years ago.”
Claire stared.
“What?”
Eleanor pressed a hand to her chest.
“Nathan said Rebecca’s relatives took her.”
Nathan’s eyes remained on the photograph.
“They did.”
Marion said, “That was never proven.”
Claire turned the photo over again.
Diane, alive.
Rebecca, alive.
An address.
Maybe the story was not only about stealing children.
Maybe some women had been stealing them back.
The officer’s radio crackled.
Evidence team was arriving.
Dr. Voss’s phone buzzed on the counter.
Everyone looked at it.
He did not move.
Marion stepped closer and read the screen.
Unknown caller.
Then a text appeared.
Do not let Claire see Rebecca.
Claire’s stomach dropped.
Nathan looked away.
Marion picked up the phone with a tissue and showed the officer.
Claire whispered, “Who sent that?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I think I know.”
Nathan said, “Don’t.”
But Eleanor did.
“Vanessa.”
Claire frowned.
“Your daughter?”
Eleanor nodded.
Nathan’s sister.
Claire had met Vanessa Mercer twice. Once at the wedding, where she wore black and called it navy. Once after Oliver was born, when she brought flowers and said, “Mercer boys always change the house.”
Vanessa had smiled at the baby with no warmth.
Claire looked at Nathan.
“Your sister is involved?”
He said nothing.
Eleanor’s face hardened.
“My daughter has wanted Whitestone since Claire’s mother disappeared.”
Marion placed the photograph into an evidence sleeve.
“Then we go to the address.”
Nathan stood.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
He looked at Claire.
For the first time, his voice was not smooth.
It was raw.
“If you go there, you will not like what you find.”
Claire looked at Oliver.
Then at the milk.
Then at Ava, sixteen and trembling because adults had used her hands.
Then at Eleanor, old and shaking and finally believed.
“I already don’t like what I found here.”
Nathan looked at her for a long moment.
Then said one sentence that made Eleanor gasp.
“Rebecca took Emma because my mother helped her.”
Claire turned.
Eleanor went white.
Nathan smiled, but there was no victory in it.
“You wanted truth, Mother? Tell Claire why you really came to the crib tonight.”
Eleanor’s lips trembled.
Nathan pointed at the photograph.
“She wasn’t saving Oliver from me first. She was saving him from what she failed to stop six years ago.”
Claire looked at Eleanor.
The old woman’s face collapsed.
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And somewhere in the mansion, the nursery camera began playing a lullaby no one had turned on.
Continue to Chapter 5 — because Eleanor Mercer has been carrying guilt for six years, and baby Oliver is not the first child she tried to save.
