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I’m so proud of my Kyper Nation, you’re standing up and demanding to be heard and demanding to own the conversation, and you can make adifference!
Because when one person speaks their truth, it opens the door for all of us to do the same, and if we listen with an open heart and mind the pain becomes lighter for all of us.
What I’ve learned from this is, you can’t let the haters win. You have to speak out, even if you’re nervous about saying the wrong thing, because really the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing, you know? It’s not enough to justsurvivesomething, right? Like, that’s not the point of life.
I know what it’s like to have someone let you down andtrample on your dreams. People make promises and they say they’ll do something and then they let you down. They think they can walk away but you have to hold them to account. You can’t let them get away with treating you like you don’tmatter!
At a certain point you have to stand up for yourself because no one else can do that for you. You have to take backcontrol.
And if that comes with risk, well, there’s a lot that’s been lost already.
chapter 29
millie
The window is unlocked just as Stacey said it would be.
I glance up at the properties overlooking the pool to the rear of the Glass House. Once I’m certain I’m not being watched, I slide my credit card beneath the window catch and open it an inch.
Tensing, I wait for the scream of the alarm. Stacey said she wouldn’t set it, but there’s always the possibility Felix did it himself.
The light on the sensor stays green.
I push the window fully open, and climb inside. The inverted layout of the Glass House means the bedrooms are all downstairs; judging from the dirty boxers puddled on the floor and the rats’ nest of cables trailing across the desk, I’m in their son’s room. I step over a sweaty trainer with its heel ground down, and go out into the hall. Felix’s study is at the far end of the corridor. According to Stacey, he keeps it locked twenty-four/seven.
Privacy is one thing: every healthy marriage has its secrets. I’ve never bought into the notion that husbands and wives should be open books to one another. Who wants to read a novel when you know every twist before it happens and how the story will end? But Stacey says Felix guards his study as if he has a body hidden in there. He locks it even when he goes to the loo.
‘It’s not Fort Knox,’ she said, when she begged me to help her. ‘I don’t think it’d be difficult to break into his office. But he’s been working from home for the last few weeks and there’s no way I can get into his study while he’s here. If I can come up with a reason to get him out of the house,youcould be in and out without him ever knowing.’
She had no idea she was tapping into my particular skill set, of course. It was just serendipity.
‘What do you need me to find?’ I asked.
‘The deeds to the house,’ Stacey said. ‘The bank sent them to us when we paid off the mortgage four years ago, but I don’t know what Felix has done with them. I can’t sell the house without them.’
‘The Land Registry must have a digital copy,’ I said.
‘We can apply for one but the backlog has been ridiculous ever since Covid. It could takemonths. I need the deeds, Millie,’ Stacey said urgently, her hand tightening on mine as she reached across the kitchen island. ‘I’ll never be able to get away from him if I can’t sell the house.’
It takes me less than a minute to break into Felix’s office. His study is far messier than I remember from my initial tour of the house. Several lever arch files lie open on the slab of glass that serves as his desk. Others have been hastily and unevenly shoved back into place on the shelves behind it. The wastepaper bin is overflowing, crumpled paper spilling onto the floor. Beside it, a shredder is so full it’s jammed. The room looks as if it’s been ransacked by MI5. How can a man this controlling in his personal life be sodisorganised?
I skim the business files on his desk, and then turn my attention to the filing cabinet in the corner. It’s unlocked: the top drawer contains an empty bottle of Scotch that rolls towards me with a clang when I open it. Therest is filled with folders from Copper Beech. I rifle through them, but there’s nothing personal there.
I’m not worried about getting caught – Stacey’s taken Felix and their son to a lunch with friends in Cheltenham, so I have plenty of time – but I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to. This is business, not pleasure.
I pick up a painted rock emblazoned with the worddaDdyin red paint, and toss it idly from hand to hand. If I wanted to hide important documents, where would I put them?
Felix doesn’t have a safe. There are no drawers attached to his minimalist glass desk. No other cupboards or cabinets in the room. Where does he keep his pencils and paperclips, for God’s sake?
I suddenly spot a navy folder slotted in horizontally along the top of some of the files on a high bookshelf above his desk. Putting the rock down, I reach for it and flip it open. The letterhead on the first page is gilt-embossed:Lyon Raymond&Lyon. Harper was right: it’s a letter confirming the law firm’s retainer to represent Felix in his divorce.
The divorce Stacey knows nothing about.
Harper ran into Felix coming out of the lawyers’ office the day Tom and I saw them hugging on the street. If we threaten to tell Stacey about the divorce, she reasoned, Felix might agree to sell the Glass House to me in return for our silence. But first we need proof.
I doubt Felix will be that easily intimidated. But since I’m here anyway, it can’t hurt to take copies of the paperwork and give it a shot, just to get Harper off my back.
I’m a little surprised he wants a divorce, to be honest. Abusive, controlling men like him don’t usually let their wives out of their clutches. But according to Harper, Stacey has family money. A lot of money: after her brother’s death, she inherited her parents’ considerable estate. I’m guessing that until now it’s been ring-fenced from Felix by anetwork of trusts, but if they were to get divorced, it’s possible the estate would no longer be afforded the same protection. Maybe Felix has reached the point where he wants the money more than he wants her.
