Chapter 6 - The Marriage Behind the Lie
The deputy separated Blake and Patricia.
I remained in the living room while Daniel drove from Seattle.
Through the glass doors, the ocean looked almost unreal—blue, bright, and completely indifferent to the destruction inside my home.
Blake sat across from me.
“You’re overreacting.”
“You stole money, forged my signature, and tried to take my house.”
“I was going to replace everything.”
“With what?”
He said nothing.
I remembered the late meetings, the new passwords, and the calls he always took outside.
This had not begun yesterday.
“How long has your company been failing?”
His eyes moved toward Patricia.
“Six months.”
The deputy entered holding Blake’s phone.
“With his consent, we reviewed communications related to the storage unit.”
Blake protested. “I only agreed to show you the access code.”
“You handed me an unlocked phone and stated I could review the messages concerning the case.”
The deputy displayed a thread between Blake and Patricia.
One message read:
Once Claire is out, we trigger abandonment, file emergency occupancy, and move the trust papers before Reeves can interfere.
Another read:
After sixty days, Marissa can move in.
I looked at Blake.
“Who is Marissa?”
His face changed.
Patricia closed her eyes.
The deputy scrolled farther.
Photographs appeared.
Blake kissing a blonde woman outside a Seattle hotel.
Blake holding her waist at a restaurant.
Blake standing beside her in a furnished condo.
The time stamps went back nearly a year.
My grief arrived quietly.
No scream.
No dramatic collapse.
Just a cold emptiness spreading through my chest.
“You planned to move your girlfriend into my house?”
Blake leaned forward.
“It wasn’t serious.”
The deputy read another message.
Marissa had written:
Once Claire signs the separation agreement, the beach house becomes ours.
I looked at the man I had loved for eleven years.
He had not simply betrayed me.
May you like
He had promised my life to someone else.
👉 Claire had just discovered the affair, but the messages also revealed that Marissa knew private details only someone inside the trust could have shared.
