Chapter 2: The Register
My lawyer’s name is Dana Okafor, and the first thing she said when I finished telling her everything was, “Okay. Where’s your copy of the certificate?”
“In the safe at the house in Cape Elizabeth.”
“And who’s living in the house in Cape Elizabeth?”
I didn’t answer. We both knew.
Vanessa Hale had moved in nine days after Adrian’s boat went missing. I found that out from our neighbor, Mrs. Abernathy, who called me crying. She said a moving van came, and a woman with a lot of luggage, and a locksmith. When Mrs. Abernathy asked who she was, the woman said, “I’m the widow,” and closed the door.
My clothes were in that house. My grandmother’s quilt. My dissertation notes. And the cream-colored envelope with our marriage certificate, locked in the closet safe whose code was Adrian’s mother’s birthday, because he thought that was funny.
Colin knew that code. Colin knew everything.
“Then we go to the source,” Dana said. “County records. Marriages are public.”
The Cumberland County clerk’s office smells like old carpet and toner. Dana and I stood at the counter while a nice young man in a sweater vest typed our date into his computer.
“June fourteenth,” he said. “Sterling, Adrian James.” He turned the monitor toward us. “Married to… Hale, Vanessa Marie. Officiant, the Honorable Harold Price.”
I put both hands flat on the counter so I wouldn’t fall over.
“That’s wrong,” I said. “That was me. Natalie Brooks. Judge Price married us. He wore a bow tie with little anchors on it. He made a joke about my name and the ocean.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. This is what the register shows.”
“Can we see the paper record?” Dana asked. “The original license application?”
He went into the back. He was gone twenty minutes. When he came back, his face had changed. “It’s, um. It’s been checked out. To the county records audit, back in August.” He frowned at his screen. “That’s weird. I don’t see who requested it.”
August. Two months before Adrian disappeared.
On the drive back, Dana was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “Natalie, I have to ask. Is there anyone else? Anyone who saw you get married?”
“Judge Price.” I swallowed. “He died last spring. A heart attack.”
“And?”
“And Colin. Colin was our witness.”
Dana didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
The truth is, we kept it small on purpose. Adrian hated the press. His mother had wanted him to marry a senator’s daughter, and she’d made it very clear what she thought of a marine biologist from a fishing town in Rhode Island who still drove a 2011 Subaru. “We’ll tell her after the big wedding,” Adrian kept saying. “Next summer. On the lake. She’ll come around.” I kept my own name at work. I wore my ring on a chain on the ship so it wouldn’t get caught in the winches.
I’d thought it was romantic. A secret just for us.
It turns out a secret is the easiest thing in the world to steal.
Three days later, the probate court held an emergency hearing on Adrian’s estate. Two point three billion dollars, plus the company, plus the houses. Vanessa had filed as surviving spouse. Dana had filed an objection on my behalf. The hearing room in Portland was small and too warm, with a portrait of some long-dead judge staring down at us.
Vanessa sat at the other table in a black suit, her diamond catching the light. Eleanor sat behind her, holding her shoulder. When I walked in, Eleanor looked at me the way you’d look at a stain.
Vanessa’s lawyer presented the certificate. The register printout. A stack of photographs: Vanessa and Adrian on a beach, Vanessa and Adrian at a gala, Vanessa in a white dress on courthouse steps with a man whose face was turned away.
“These are fake,” I whispered to Dana. “That’s not even his jacket.”
“I know. Wait.”
Then Vanessa’s lawyer said, “We call Colin Reyes.”
Colin walked to the front of the room. He put his hand on the Bible. He sat down and adjusted his glasses and looked straight at the judge, never once at me.
“Mr. Reyes,” the lawyer said. “Were you present on June fourteenth, three years ago, at the Cumberland County courthouse?”
“Yes.”
“In what capacity?”
Colin cleared his throat. “I was the witness. He married Vanessa.”
