Chapter 7 - Words from the Edge
I watched my daughter’s eyes move across the paper line by line, the silence stretching between us like a taut wire.
“What does it say, Chloe?” I asked softly.
Chloe didn't answer right away. She folded the letter back up, held it tightly against her chest, and took her first deep, steady breath in what felt like hours.
“It’s from Sarah,” Chloe said.
My brow furrowed. “Sarah? Which Sarah?”
“Sarah Jenkins,” Chloe replied, her voice steadying. “Spencer’s former administrative assistant at Apex Shield. The one who mysteriously resigned six months ago after taking a sudden ‘extended leave of absence.’”
The pieces clicked together in my mind with terrifying clarity. “The woman he claimed had a nervous breakdown.”
“She didn't have a nervous breakdown,” Chloe said bitterly, a thin, humourless smile touching her lips. “She was pregnant. With his second child. Spencer paid her hush money, forced her to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and tried to banish her to Wisconsin. But before she left, she discovered what he was planning to do to me—how he was planning to frame me for corporate embezzlement if his federal investigations ever closed in, and how he planned to use the baby to manipulate my inheritance.”
Chloe looked down at the letter in her hand, her thumb tracing the edge of the paper.
“She wrote this letter three weeks ago and gave it to the baker with instructions to tape it under the cake board on the day of the reveal, just in case Spencer’s control over the party slipped even a fraction of an inch,” Chloe continued. “She said she couldn't live with herself knowing another woman was walking blind into the same trap she barely escaped.”
I reached out and squeezed my daughter’s hand. It was no longer shaking.
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“You’re stronger than you know, Chloe,” I said. “You survived four years of his psychological warfare. You survived miscarriages, heartbreak, and betrayal. And you are going to survive this.”
“I know I am, Mom,” Chloe said, standing up slowly from the patio steps. She looked out over the empty backyard, past the ruined cake, past the scattered chairs and fallen napkins. “In fact... I’ve never felt more clear-headed in my life.”
