Chapter 4 - The Woman Upstairs
Lauren Thorne requested immunity before noon.
The prosecutor refused.
She requested a private attorney.
Her father sent one from Boston.
She requested permission to leave New York.
Detective Ruiz denied it.
By afternoon, Lauren had transformed from the untouchable woman whose perfume clung to my husband’s collar into a potential witness sitting beneath fluorescent lights in a police interview room.
I watched none of that happen.
I learned about it from Maya while a surgeon stabilized my wrist.
When I awakened, my left arm was wrapped from hand to elbow.
My mother sat beside the bed, reading messages on my phone.
“You have four hundred and twelve missed notifications,” she said.
“Turn it off.”
“I already did.”
She placed it facedown.
“One message came through before I silenced it.”
“From Matthew?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
“From Lauren.”
My body tightened.
“What did she say?”
My mother handed me the phone.
The message contained only six words.
I did not know he would do that.
I read them twice.
Then a third time.
My anger was not clean.
Part of me wanted to blame her for everything.
She knew he was married.
She had stood beside him when he returned.
She had encouraged him to remind me who supposedly gave me everything.
She had heard the strikes through the floor and remained silent.
But another part of me remembered the way Matthew grabbed her wrist in the hallway.
The warning in his voice.
The fear she had quickly hidden.
“Has she been charged?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
My mother took the phone back.
“You do not owe her forgiveness.”
“I know.”
“You also do not owe her hatred.”
I looked at her.
She had always understood that hatred was another form of captivity.
That evening, Detective Ruiz returned.
She brought an assistant district attorney named Rebecca Sloan and asked whether I felt strong enough to hear information about Lauren’s interview.
I agreed.
Sloan opened a notebook.
“Ms. Thorne admits she was involved with your husband for almost three years.”
Three years.
The number entered me like a blade.
“She says the relationship began after a NexusCore conference in San Francisco,” Sloan continued.
“She claims Matthew told her your marriage had ended privately.”
“He wore his wedding ring.”
“Yes.”
“She came to our apartment for company events.”
“Yes.”
“She knew.”
Sloan did not argue.
“She admits that by the second year, she knew he was lying.”
I looked toward the dark hospital window.
“Why did she stay?”
“Money.”
The honesty of the answer surprised me.
“Status.”
Sloan turned a page.
“And because Matthew purchased a house in Southampton where she lives with her son.”
The tiny blue sock beneath the passenger seat flashed through my memory.
My stomach turned.
“How old is her son?”
“Two.”
I struggled to breathe evenly.
“Is Matthew the father?”
“She says he is.”
My mother reached for my hand.
I pulled away without meaning to.
Not because I did not want her comfort.
Because the room had suddenly become too small.
Matthew had a child.
While I spent years accepting his excuses about why we should postpone starting a family, he had built another household less than one hundred miles away.
He told me the company needed us.
He told me pregnancy would interfere with the travel schedule.
He told me we would have children when NexusCore became stable.
NexusCore had become stable years ago.
Our marriage never had.
“Does the child have his name?”
“No.”
“Does Matthew support him?”
“Through corporate payments disguised as consulting expenses.”
That brought my attention back sharply.
“What kind of consulting?”
“Lauren is listed as a strategic image adviser.”
I almost laughed.
She advised him on his image while helping him destroy mine.
Sloan continued.
“Over twenty-two months, NexusCore paid her company approximately three million dollars.”
My father, who had been silent near the doorway, stepped forward.
“Company funds purchased the house?”
“We believe so.”
His expression hardened.
“That is not merely an affair.”
“No,” Sloan said.
“It may constitute financial fraud.”
I looked at the prosecutor.
“Why is Lauren cooperating?”
“Because she is frightened.”
“Of prison?”
“Of Matthew.”
Sloan slid a transcript toward me.
Lauren had described the night of the attack.
She and Matthew had argued at dinner because he still had not announced his separation from me.
When I confronted him about coming home at dawn, he told Lauren I had intentionally humiliated him.
Lauren admitted she had responded cruelly.
She told him he would never control his life while he allowed me to question him.
She expected him to return downstairs and threaten divorce.
Instead, she heard the first strike.
Then the second.
Then my voice.
She walked to the private stairwell twice.
Both times, she stopped.
“Why?” I asked.
Sloan read Lauren’s answer.
“Because I knew what was happening, and I was afraid that if I opened the door, he would turn on me.”
Silence filled the room.
I hated her for not opening that door.
But I understood fear.
Fear could make fifteen feet feel like an ocean.
Fear could keep a woman standing on one side of a wall while another woman suffered on the other.
“What happened when he came upstairs?” I asked.
“He was excited.”
Sloan’s expression revealed her disgust.
“He told Lauren he had finally put you in your place.”
The phrase made my skin crawl.
“Lauren says she wanted to leave.”
“He stopped her?”
“He threatened to expose financial transfers bearing her signature and take their son.”
So Matthew returned downstairs with her because he wanted her help creating a story.
They planned to say I had been drinking.
They planned to move the cane.
They planned to clean the broken glass.
They thought they had time.
They did not know I had reached my phone.
“What does she want from me?” I asked.
“Nothing officially.”
Sloan closed her notebook.
“But she asked us to give you something.”
She placed a sealed plastic evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a small digital recorder.
“Lauren began recording Matthew six months ago.”
“Why?”
“She believed he might eventually betray her.”
A bitter smile touched my lips.
Finally, Lauren and I had something in common.
“What is on it?”
“We do not know yet.”
“The device is encrypted.”
Sloan leaned closer.
“But Lauren says it contains Matthew discussing you, NexusCore, and a plan scheduled to begin next month.”
“What plan?”
“She refused to explain until she receives a cooperation agreement.”
My father’s voice was cold.
“Then let her remain frightened.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
He turned toward me.
“She left you on that floor.”
“Yes.”
“She encouraged him.”
“Yes.”
“She helped him steal.”
“Yes.”
Each answer hurt.
But I had spent too many years allowing Matthew’s choices to determine mine.
May you like
“I want the truth,” I said.
“Even if Lauren is the person holding it.”
