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“But where is the safe?” I sit back on my heels on my closet floor, thinking where a hidden safe that I didn’t even know existed would be. I know we have a safe. I’ve been in it many times, but it uses our thumbprint or a code. There’s no spot for a keyhole. I’ve checked half a dozen times already.
I walk over to Dane’s closet, thinking that maybe like Mads, he has one hidden in here. I search everywhere, but I don’t find it.
“His office,” I say as I gesture, smacking my forehead. I run down the stairs and into his office, closing the door and locking it behind me so I’m not interrupted by Tilly. I pull books from the shelves, thinking that maybe there’s a hidden compartment somewhere, but I find nothing. I check the closet, even using my flashlight on my phone to look under his desk and the couch on the far right side but again… nothing.
I sink down onto the couch, looking around the room, and my eyes settle on the massive picture hanging behind his desk.
“That’s too cliché,” I mutter as I stand up and walk over to it. I turn on my phone flashlight again, gingerly peering behind the picture when I see the dark outline of a perfect square. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I look up at the massive picture, unsure how I’m ever going to get this thing off the wall. I run my hand along the frame when I feel something. I jiggle it and it feels like a hook. I angle the light and look at it. Sure enough, it’s a small hook that anchors the picture to the wall. I lift it slowly and when I do, I realize the picture is mounted on a hinge on one side like in an old haunted mansion. I slowly swing it open like a door, revealing the hidden safe.
I place the key in the keyhole and it turns. “What would the number sequence be?”
I try our anniversary, but that doesn’t work. I try my birthday, then his birthday, but again, nothing. I pace the floor, thinking through any other dates that come to mind, but I’m drawing a blank. I glance over at one of the bookcases and see a framed photo of me and Dane. I pick it up, looking at the huge smile on our faces. It was the first day we met. We were at the All White Party in the Hamptons and he had come in on a helicopter. I remember being stricken by his looks immediately, and then he turned on the charm and I was done for.
I run my fingers over the photo. We looked genuinely happy. I can’t imagine that we weren’t, that it wasn’t real. My heart squeezes again, thinking about all the unanswered questions that still haunt me. The complete lack of closure when it comes to losing someone and finding out their secrets after they’re gone is a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I place the photo down, turning my attention back to the dial on the safe.
I take a chance, turning the dial to fall on the date of our first meeting. When I round to the last number, I hear a loud click and tug on the handle. It slowly opens, revealing a stack of folders inside.
Grabbing the folders, I place them on Dane’s desk in front of me and take a seat in his chair. Slowly, I open the first one. It’s a copy of our marriage certificate. A pang runs through my chest, but I don’t allow myself to start wallowing again. I set it aside, seeing a copy of our prenuptial agreement. I close the folder and set it aside, opening another.
A knot forms in my stomach when I see what’s in it. A detailed breakdown of my entire financial portfolio. “Why would he have this hidden from me?” I look it over. There’s a picture of me, an older picture. I must have been barely nineteen in the picture. There are several other photos, ones where I’m clearly out shopping or at dinner with friends, like I was being followed.
There are newspaper clippings about my parents’ deaths, my father’s estate, and how everything went to me. I continue searching through the files when I stumble upon a life insurance policy in my name for ten million dollars. I look further and there’s another for five million, then a few for one million. I count them. In total, there are over a dozen policies in my name, all of which have my signature, but I don’t remember signing them.
About a year into our marriage, Dane and I discussed life insurance. He randomly brought it up one night and I had confessed that I didn’t know much about it. I was only twenty-one at the time, and considering how wealthy both of my parents were, life insurance wasn’t something I really thought was necessary. He had convinced me that it still was, so we both agreed to doing individual policies, but they’re in the safe I knew about.
I get up and run upstairs to where our large safe is, opening it and double-checking that the policies are still inside. I bring them downstairs, comparing my signatures and they’re the same. I sink back down into Dane’s chair, looking through the rest of the papers in the safe.
There are dozens of NDAs all signed by different women. My stomach curdles and I fall to my knees, grabbing the waste basket and emptying the contents of my stomach. My head spins. I feel like a fool. I don’t know what any of this means, but I know it is part of this puzzle I’ve been trying to solve for months.
I crawl to the bathroom in his office, splashing my face with cold water and taking several deep breaths. I want to fall apart. I want to crumple to the floor and cry my eyes out, but I won’t allow myself. Instead, I grab the insurance policies and decide to call each company to verify that they’re real.
Then I take another shower, get dressed, and decide that the only person who can give me answers is Mads. This time, I’m not going to let him talk me out of asking for details. I need to know every single detail about the life he hid from me, and I’m not leaving his house until I do.
* * *
“Ididn’t actually think you’d still be here when I got home.” Mads smirks, reaching for a tumbler and scotch as he eyes me sitting on his couch in the living room. “Pleasant surprise.”
“I’m not so sure it is pleasant,” I say calmly. He gives me a puzzled look as I reach for the stack of folders I placed on the coffee table in front of me.
“What’s that?”
“That’s what I want to know,” I say as I flip them open.
He pours himself a drink, leaning forward to grab one of the folders. I watch as his eyes scan the paper, his expression immediately changing from curiosity to annoyed.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Emery. Why can’t you let it go?”
“Let it go?” My voice pitches and I grab the life insurance policies. “How would you feel if you found a hidden safe in your house and inside were a dozen life insurance policies your husband took out on you that you have no memory of signing?” I slap them back down. “Why did Dane have these? I know you know more than you’re letting on.”
“What is this? You fuck me and then corner me and demand answers? I’m getting pretty fucking tired of this song and dance. I’m not your human dildo that you can seduce to get answers to your fucked-up life.” He slams the scotch tumbler down after finishing it. I jump at his harsh words and the loud smack of the glass hitting the table. “Move on, Emery. Either move on from all of this or move on from me. I’m tired of you dragging me into this. I don’t have the fucking answers that you want and even if I did, I wouldn’t give them to you.”
“I’m not using you or seducing you for answers. I found the safe hidden in Dane’s office after finding the hidden key and guessing the combination. If anyone knew what he was doing, it was you, and we both know it. I don’t care if you think I’m grasping at straws or only digging a deeper hole for myself. I want answers and I’m not leaving here until I have them!” I slam my hand down onto the folders, tears pricking my eyes as my chin quivers.
“What good will it do? Hmm?” He sinks down in the chair across from me, his elbows on his knees as he leans toward me. “Even if I had all the answers, what good would it do to know? He’s gone, Em, and that’s all that matters.”
“Closure!” I practically wail, beyond frustrated that he cannot seem to grasp the pain and turmoil I’m in. “You have no idea,” I say through a shaky voice, “how hard it is to lose your partner, the love of your life, the person you thought was your soulmate and have no explanation other than some generic business deal that went bad which makes zero sen—”
“Jesus Christ, it was fake!” he shouts as he shoots upward out of his chair. “It was all fucking fake, Emery!”
