บททั้งหมดของ The Governor’s Wife, His beautiful ruin: บทที่ 131 - บทที่ 140

Evelyn The car was back. Same spot. Same dark body and engine off. I noticed it the second I pulled back the curtain at seven in the morning, standing there with my coffee going cold in my hand. I called Theo. He picked up on the second ring. “I’m already outside.” I pulled the curtain back further. His car was at my gate, parked behind mine, and he was leaning against the driver’s side with his phone to his ear looking directly at the other car across the road. “When did you get here,” I said. “Twenty minutes ago. I drove past last night after I left and it was gone. Came back this morning and it was here again same position.” A pause. “Go get dressed. Don’t come outside yet.” I dropped the curtain and went upstairs and pulled on clothes and came back down and by the time I got to the front door Theo was already coming up the path. “Anything?” I said. “Tinted windows. Can’t see the driver.” He came inside and closed the door behind him. “But I got the plate this

Evelyn Theo set his keys on the counter when we got back and didn’t pick them up again. I noticed but didn’t say anything immediately. I went upstairs and changed out of the black dress and washed my face and when I came back down he was in the living room with the television on low and his jacket off and his shoes by the door and it was clear he had made a decision without making an announcement about it. “You don’t have to stay,” I said from the doorway. He looked up at me. “I know.” “The security company already sent people. The gate is covered.” “I know that too.” He looked back at the screen. “You hungry? I can make something.” I looked at him sitting there on my couch in my living room at the end of the worst day either of us had had in weeks and felt something move through my chest that I didn’t have the energy to examine properly right now. “I’m not hungry,” I said. “Sit down then.” I can’t leave you here alone after what I saw in that house today.” He set his keys

Evelyn Margaret was on her second coffee by the time I brought it up. We had been sitting in the living room for close to two hours by then, folders spread across the table between us, divorce petition drafted in Margaret’s handwriting, the joint account situation mapped out across two pages, the property question flagged for a separate conversation with a financial specialist she knew who could move fast. We had covered everything we needed to cover and Margaret was capping her pen and straightening her papers and I knew if I didn’t say it now I would lose the nerve entirely. “I need you to take on another case,” I said. She looked up. “Theo Hart,” I said. “Alfred’s lawyers filed charges against him yesterday. Data theft, breach of confidentiality, NDA violation. They executed a search warrant on his apartment this morning and took his laptop and files and they’re calling him in for voluntary questioning that we both know isn’t going to stay voluntary.” Margaret put her pen do

3:04am Alfred had been parked outside for forty minutes. Three drinks in an empty house then he was in his car, driving nowhere specific, until nowhere specific became her street. He pulled over half a block from her gate. Cut the engine. The bedroom light was on. The curtains weren’t fully drawn. Warm light behind thin fabric, the room clearly occupied. Close enough to see that much. The curtains weren’t fully drawn. He could see enough. Her silhouette first, unmistakable, the curve of her back, her head dropping back. Then him behind her, hands on her waist, turning her, pulling her into him and she went, God she went willingly, arching back against him like Alfred had never existed, like twenty two years had never happened, like that room and that man were the only things that had ever been real to her. Alfred’s hands locked around the steering wheel. He watched her roll toward the man and disappear under him and the light became brighter and he could see her move. H

Evelyn Margaret dropped the folder on my kitchen table and sat down and I sat across from her. The charge sheet was eleven pages. I read every line twice and by the fourth page I understood why Alfred had looked so unbothered at his doorstep. This wasn’t something put together in a morning. This had been in preparation for weeks, maybe longer, organized and layered and built by people who knew exactly what they were doing. Unauthorized access to protected campaign systems. Theft of confidential materials. Breach of NDA. Disclosure of protected information to unauthorized parties. Trespassing on private property on multiple recorded occasions. Each charge had dates attached. Specific dates, specific locations, specific files. “They have logs,” Margaret said, turning a page toward me. “Server access logs showing every time he was in those systems outside of his authorized hours. Forty three separate instances.” I looked at the dates. “They’ve been building this for months,” I said