The words struck harder than Derek’s punch.
“How?”
“When Robert died, his estate attorney sent a notice.
You were deployed for consulting work in Dubai.
I opened it.”
“I wasn’t deployed.”
“Whatever.
You were gone.”
“I sold ventilation systems to a hospital project.”
She looked away.
I laughed once.
My whole marriage had become surreal.
Rebecca continued quietly.
“Claire apparently discovered a clause in the trust.”
Martin nodded.
“If the marriage ended through voluntary dissolution, occupancy rights terminated and sole beneficial possession reverted to you, Mr.
Mercer.”
Derek’s face went pale.
“And if Cole abandoned the home?”
Rebecca asked.
Martin answered.
“If he permanently vacated under certain documented conditions, Claire could petition for continued occupancy.”
There it was.
I understood.
The affair.
The humiliation.
The challenge.
The pressure to leave.
The insistence that I sign everything away.
They had needed me out.
Not merely divorced.
Out voluntarily.
Preferably angry.
Preferably ashamed.
Preferably convinced the house was hers.
I looked at Claire.
“You wanted me to abandon it.”
She began crying.
I had seen Claire cry hundreds of times.
At funerals.
Movies.
When our dog died.
When we lost the baby.
These tears did nothing to me.
“You knew the house wasn’t ours to divide.”
“I was trying to protect myself.”
“By forging my signature?”
“I didn’t know what else to do!”
Derek stepped between us.
“Back off.”
Rebecca actually laughed.
Everyone looked at her.
“Derek,” she said, “you may want to stop speaking.”
He pointed at me.
“This whole thing is because of him.
Claire told me he controlled all the money.”
I looked at Claire.
“Did you?”
She whispered, “You did.”
“I paid everything.”
“You made me ask you before big purchases.”
“Because you once bought a nineteen-thousand-dollar car without telling me.”
“I was miserable!”
There it was again.
The doctrine of feeling.
If Claire felt trapped, then any action became justified.
Rebecca handed another packet to me.
“There’s one more issue.”
I almost didn’t want it.
“What?”
“The home equity loan.”
“I thought the house couldn’t be borrowed against.”
“It can’t.”
“Then how—”
“It wasn’t borrowed against your house.”
Everyone went still.
Rebecca looked toward Derek.
“It was borrowed against this gym.”
Derek’s mouth fell open.
“What?”
“The loan documents use Apex Predator’s property interest as collateral.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Rebecca pulled out the document.
