My Second Life Starts With Divorce novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Green Awning

Solveig meets Declan Ferrow, the man who texted her, who explains why Warner needs page nine and shows her where Warner spent the night.

I called the number back before the cab reached the highway.

It rang twice, and then a man picked up and said nothing.

I could hear him breathing.

"Who is this?" I asked. "How do you know that street?"

"Mrs. Tilden." His voice was low and careful. "Please don't hang up."

"I'm not Mrs. anything by tonight. Answer me."

"Not on the phone. There's a diner on Lyndale, the one with the green awning. Bring the papers you signed."

"How do you know I signed anything?"

"I'll tell you what I can in person," he said. "Give me an hour."

He ended the call before I could.

I told the driver to take me to a hotel near the river first.

I paid for the room with my own card and left my bag on the bed without unpacking it.

Then I walked the six blocks to Lyndale with my copy of the settlement in my purse.

The diner had a green awning and a bell on the door.

At the back booth a man was already sitting with his hands flat on the table.

He stood when he saw me.

He was tall, maybe thirty-five, in a dark wool coat, with grey eyes that stayed on my face a moment too long.

"Solveig," he said. Then, "Mrs. Tilden. Sorry."

"Solveig is fine. Who are you?"

"Declan Ferrow."

I knew the name from the sides of buildings.

Ferrow Hotels owned half the downtown skyline and the best bar in the city.

I sat down across from him and did not take off my coat.

Through the window I could see a grey sedan parked at the curb.

It was the same sedan that had been outside my house.

"That's your car," I said.

"Yes."

"You were watching my house this morning."

"Yes." He did not look away. "I wanted to see you walk out in daylight."

"That's a strange thing to want."

"I know how it sounds."

A waitress came and he ordered coffee for both of us, and she left.

I waited.

"Warner and I were friends once," he said. "Before he and Savannah's father got into my father's company and took it apart. I know how Warner works. He picks a day that means something to you, and he brings the paper to the day."

"Today is our anniversary."

"He's done it on a birthday before. To someone else."

I folded my hands on the table so he would not see them shake.

"Why page nine?" I asked. "He struck it in front of his mother. He didn't even fight."

"May I see the settlement?"

I slid it across.

He read the first page, then the last, then the struck line on page nine.

He ran his thumb along the initials without touching the ink.

"He doesn't want the house," he said quietly. "He doesn't want your money. He wanted this page."

"My shares. He said they were worth nothing."

"They're worth everything to him. Tilden Logistics can't be sold without the holder of the forty percent. That's you."

I stared at him.

"He told me they were in my name for the taxes."

"He told you that at the wedding," Declan said. "I'd bet on it."

He was right.

He had said it with a kiss on my forehead while I was holding a glass of champagne.

"How do you know all this?"

"Because Savannah's father has been trying to buy Tilden Logistics for a year," he said. "And because I have people who watch what Warner does."

The coffee came.

Neither of us touched it.

"Let me ask you something else," I said. "The text. The street."

His face changed very slightly.

"I can tell you everything about Warner," he said. "About that street, I can only ask you to stay off it."

"That isn't an answer."

"No," he said. "It isn't."

"Then why should I trust a word you say?"

He thought about that.

"You shouldn't," he said. "Not yet. Check everything I told you. Call a lawyer who has never met either of us."

"That's a strange pitch."

"I'm not pitching. I'm asking you not to go out tonight, and I'm asking you to let me prove the rest."

I looked at his hands.

There was a cut across the back of his knuckles, half healed, and the skin around his thumbnail was bitten raw.

This was not a man who sat in boardrooms calm.

"Why do you care what I do tonight?"

He opened his mouth and closed it.

"Because it's the one night he can finish this," he said. "He has the draft of the sale already."

"Of what sale?"

"Of Tilden Logistics. To Savannah's father."

My coffee cup rattled against the saucer, and I put my hand over it to make it stop.

"Warner was not at the office last night," I said slowly. "I fell asleep waiting for him."

"No," Declan said. "He wasn't."

He took out his phone and turned it toward me.

It was a photograph of a long gravel drive and a stone house with every window lit.

The time stamp said 11:42 the night before.

Warner's car stood in the drive.

"He didn't forget your anniversary," Declan said. "He was at Savannah's father's house, signing a draft of the sale."

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