Chapter 3 - The Folder on the Dining Table
“My what?”
Corrine’s voice was barely audible.
Louis did not look at her.
Dawson did.
And that was precisely why Louis couldn’t take the words back.
Dawson’s face shifted between disbelief and calculation.
“Your wife?”
“Yes.”
Corrine stared at Louis as though he had lost his mind.
Perhaps he had.
Dawson laughed.
“Bull.”
Louis’s expression remained emotionless.
“You want to test that theory?”
The garage became silent.
Dawson glanced toward the cameras.
Then toward the elevator.
Then back to Corrine.
Something had changed.
He was no longer looking at her as a former girlfriend.
He was looking at her as leverage.
Louis recognized it immediately.
That was worse.
“Leave,” Louis said.
Dawson smiled again.
But this time the confidence was false.
“Sure.”
He backed away.
“For now.”
Louis’s eyes hardened.
Security appeared at the far end of the garage.
Dawson turned and walked away.
Louis waited until he disappeared.
Then Corrine hit him.
Not hard.
A sharp slap against his arm.
Louis looked down.
“What was that?”
“You called me your wife!”
“I noticed.”
“Why?”
“It worked.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is technically an answer.”
She stared at him.
Louis realized humor was the wrong strategy.
“Corrine—”
“No. You don’t get to ‘Corrine’ me after announcing a marriage I apparently missed.”
“I needed him to release you.”
“He had already released me!”
“Yes.”
“So why say it?”
Louis had no good answer.
Because Dawson’s words had hurt her.
Because Louis had watched her flinch when Dawson told her nobody wanted her.
Because for one irrational second Louis had wanted to erase that sentence from existence.
He couldn’t tell her that.
Instead, he said, “It gave him a reason to understand that threatening you has consequences.”
Corrine went still.
“You made me part of your reputation.”
Louis didn’t respond.
“You did, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
She stepped backward.
“What exactly does your reputation mean?”
That was a dangerous question.
Louis looked toward security.
“Not here.”
“Then where?”
“My car.”
“No.”
“Corrine.”
“I am not getting into a car with you until you explain what just happened.”
Louis studied her.
Then his private phone vibrated.
A message.
He read it.
His expression changed.
Corrine saw.
“What?”
Louis turned the screen toward her.
It contained a photograph.
Dawson, outside the garage.
Sending a message.
The investigator had intercepted the recipient’s identity.
Louis recognized the name.
Victor Sloane.
A man Louis had spent six years keeping away from Butler Holdings.
Corrine saw the recognition in his face.
“Who is Victor?”
Louis locked the phone.
“Someone Dawson should not know.”
“Louis.”
“Get in the car.”
“No.”
“Corrine, this is no longer about Dawson.”
Her anger faltered.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the lie I told may have just become useful to someone much more dangerous.”
For the first time since the garage confrontation, Corrine looked afraid for a reason that had nothing to do with Dawson.
Louis hated himself for causing it.
He opened the car door.
This time, she got inside.
And as the armored sedan pulled away from Butler Holdings, neither of them noticed the black SUV that entered traffic three vehicles behind them.
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Someone else had heard that Corrine Harris was Louis Butler’s wife.
And someone intended to find out whether the lie was true.
