Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Pen
Three days after the bail hearing, the counterattack began.
I was in the nursery, feeding Evelyn her morning bottle, when my phone erupted with notifications. Dozens of text messages, voicemails, and news alerts flashed across the screen in rapid succession.
A viral headline from a notorious Manhattan gossip tabloid had hit the internet at 6:00 AM:
***"POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS OR GREEDY HEIRESS? IN-LAWS CLAIM CLAIRE MONTGOMERY FRAMED HUSBAND AFTER POST-BIRTH BREAKDOWN."***
The article was accompanied by a leaked photo of me sitting on the curb outside the hospital three days ago, looking pale, exhausted, and disheveled, holding Evelyn. It was a vicious, calculated hit piece.
The sources cited were "anonymous close family friends," but the venom in the quotes carried Patricia’s distinct, bitter cadence. The article alleged that I had suffered a severe manic episode following a traumatic delivery, that I had attempted to destroy Daniel's career out of paranoia, and that I was currently an unfit mother endangering the life of our newborn child.
Even worse, the article claimed that Child Protective Services had been formally petitioned to remove Evelyn from my care.
My hands shook, not with fear, but with an incandescent, burning fury.
Before I could dial Victoria, my security intercom buzzed.
"Mrs. Montgomery," the guard at the gatehouse announced. "There is a woman here named Chloe Bennett. She claims she has urgent information regarding your husband. She’s alone, and she’s asking to speak with you."
Chloe Bennett. The mistress from the penthouse.
I took a deep breath, setting Evelyn gently into her bassinet. "Send her up to the main house. But search her bag first."
Ten minutes later, the door to the morning parlor opened.
Chloe Bennett walked in. She was far younger than she had appeared in the photographs Daniel kept on his computer. Her face was pale, stripped of makeup, and her expensive designer trench coat was wrinkled as though she had slept in her car. Her eyes were red, swollen from crying, and her lower lip trembled uncontrollably.
"Mrs. Montgomery?" she whispered, clutching a leather binder to her chest.
"Sit down, Chloe," I said coldly, pointing to the wingback chair across from me. "You have five minutes to explain why you are standing in my house before my security removes you."
Chloe dropped into the chair, tears spilling instantly over her lashes. "I didn't know," she choked out, her voice cracking. "I swear to God on my mother's soul, Claire... I didn't know he was still living with you. He told me you were divorced a year ago. He told me you had moved to Europe and that he had full custody of the baby."
I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "And you believed that a man who bought you fifty-thousand-dollar bracelets was telling the truth?"
"He didn't buy those bracelets!" Chloe sobbed, slamming the leather binder onto the glass coffee table between us. "I did!"
I paused, my eyes narrowing. "What did you say?"
"He scammed me too," Chloe whispered, her body trembling with humiliation. "I inherited a seven-million-dollar trust fund from my father when he died two years ago. Daniel was my investment manager. He told me he was pooling our capital to buy a luxury estate in Greenwich where we would raise his daughter together. He took every single penny I had, Claire. Five point four million dollars."
I pulled the binder toward me and opened it.
Inside were bank statements, wire authorizations, and fraudulent stock certificates signed by Daniel Montgomery. He hadn't just embezzled from his clients. He had run a textbook romance scam on a naive, grieving young woman to fund his offshore accounts.
"When I saw the news of his arrest," Chloe wept, "and when I saw that article this morning trying to paint you as crazy... his mother called me. Patricia called me from jail using an unmonitored line."
"What did Patricia want?" I asked, my pulse accelerating.
"She wanted me to lie to the press," Chloe said, looking me directly in the eyes. "She told me if I corroborated the story that you were mentally unstable and abusive toward Daniel, she would make sure Daniel repaid my five million dollars from an undisclosed account in Switzerland. She told me to help them take your baby."
A deadly quiet descended over the parlor.
"Did you record the call, Chloe?" I asked, leaning in.
Chloe reached into her pocket, pulled out an iPhone, and placed it next to the bank records. "Every single word."
I looked at the girl sitting across from me. She had been Daniel's pawn, intended to be discarded on a beach in Saint Kitts once her inheritance was completely drained.
"Chloe," I said, my voice softening just an inch. "Do you want your money back?"
She nodded furiously, tears dripping from her chin.
May you like
"Then wipe your tears," I commanded. "We are going to make a statement to the press that will ensure neither Daniel nor Patricia ever sees daylight again."
***
