Audrey POV
The court clerk stamped her paper at 8:03 AM and gave it back without looking up.
Rachel was on the phone by the elevator. "Cassidy backed out twenty minutes ago. They're giving it to someone else."
Audrey kept walking. "Who's next?"
"Judge Patricia Mercer. She's clean. No ties to Williams."
One problem solved. Three more to go.
Outside, it was cold and bright. Audrey pulled her coat tight and walked north. Rachel walked with her, still talking, but Audrey was thinking.
Getting a new judge was good, but James would find out soon. He always changed his plans.
She needed to be two steps ahead of him.
Her phone buzzed. An email from Rachel's office, sent anonymously at 6 AM. It had a photo.
She knew the place. Her father-in-law's favorite lunch spot was a private room James used for secret meetings. In the picture, James sat with Elena Chase.
Papers were on the table. It was three weeks ago.
Someone sent the same photo to Scott.
She knew this because the anonymous sender was linked to Garrett, who called her last night. He said Elena had done this before.
He was giving both of them information, on purpose, at the same time.
She stopped.
Rachel looked at her. "What's wrong?"
"Someone is running this from a place we don't know." She put her phone away. "They want Scott and me to see the same thing at the same time.
That's not good. It's like a setup."
"Does that change your plan?"
"No." She started walking again. "It just means we're not the only ones involved."
She was going to an office on West 54th. It was a private office above a finance company, with no signs or public listing.
She found it four months ago after six weeks of searching.
Margaret Voss opened the door. She was sixty, small, wore glasses, and showed no emotion. She used to be a federal investigator for financial crimes for twenty years.
Now she worked for clients she chose, and her price made people think twice.
Audrey had paid her two months ago.
"James moved faster than we thought," Audrey said, sitting.
"Yes." Margaret put a folder on the desk. "He filed at 6 AM. Cassidy backed out at 7:40.
That was quick, which means someone outside your team pressured James."
Audrey opened the folder.
Inside was a money trail. Fake companies, four layers deep, all leading back to an account linked to a Williams Enterprises board member. Not James or Scott.
Someone else had been gaining power in the company for eighteen months.
"Richard Patel," Audrey said.
"Patel has been getting other board members on his side. He needs James to be weak to get ahead." Margaret tapped the folder. "Elena didn't just come back to New York by chance.
Someone paid her. Patel needed trouble in the Williams family.
A divorce, a scandal, a CEO who wasn't paying attention."
It made sense now. Elena wasn't alone. Someone paid her and told her what to do. So the anniversary night wasn't about love or anger.
It was a business move dressed up as a personal betrayal.
Audrey felt something cold in her chest. Not sadness, but something colder.
She thought of Scott's face in the bedroom. How he gripped the bed. How he looked like the floor was moving.
She closed the folder.
She didn't say what she was thinking. Not yet.
"What does Patel want with me?" she asked.
"He tried to get your investigator to dig up dirt on you. Not to use you, but to control Scott." Margaret took the folder.
"If Scott saw proof his wife was working against his company before the anniversary, it would make him believe the marriage was already bad.
It would stop Scott from having a say against Patel's plans for the board."
"He needed Scott to lose trust and be alone."
"And to go along with things. A man going through a bad divorce, sad, guilty, trying to fix his own life, won't be paying attention to the board." Margaret looked at her. "Elena started the fire.
Patel poured on the fuel."
Audrey stood up. "I need everything about Patel's group. Names, accounts, when he got things. All of it."
"It's ready." Margaret gave her another folder. "One more thing." She paused. "The paper you had signed. The Hargrove talk."
"What about it?"
"James wasn't alone in that meeting either. Patel was the buyer in that bad deal. James was covering for him."
Audrey stood still.
If that paper came out, it wouldn't just hurt James. It would show the whole deal and Patel's part in it.
Patel didn't try to stop her just because she was James's wife.
He tried to stop her because she was there.
Her phone buzzed. Rachel.
She answered.
"Thorne's office just filed a new request," Rachel said. "They want a hearing today. Judge Mercer has time at 4 PM."
Four hours.
"I'll be there."
She hung up and looked at Margaret. "I need one more thing. The investigator Patel talked to. What was his name?"
Margaret checked her notes. "Callahan. Frank Callahan. He said no to the job. Then, he said he called the person in the file."
He called Scott. This morning. And he told Scott a name. Patel's name.
This meant Scott knew the same things she did, but he found out differently. Neither of them planned it.
She picked up her bag.
"If Scott Williams calls here," she said at the door, "don't tell him I was here."
She was in a cab going downtown when her phone rang. Not Rachel or Margaret. An unknown number, like Garrett's call last night.
She answered but didn't speak.
"The hearing at four," a woman's voice said. Not Garrett. Her voice was quiet. "Thorne will show a paper.
A money record showing you paid Rachel Holt from your other account. Four months ago."
"That money transfer is real."
"But the date on the paper they're filing isn't. They moved it back eight months. This was before Elena came back to New York. Before anything bad happened."
There was a pause.
"This will make it seem like you were getting ready to leave your marriage long before your anniversary. Like you planned to go before he cheated."
The taxi stopped at a red light.
"It will look like I wanted to leave," Audrey said. "And made up an excuse."
"Yes."
She just sat there for three seconds.
Then her phone buzzed again. It was a photo from the same number.
The photo showed the changed paper. It had the Williams Enterprises name at the top.
Thorne's signature was at the bottom.
And in the corner, there was another signature she didn't expect.
Her stomach felt sick.
The other signature was Victoria Winters. Her adoptive mom.