AT MY HUSBAND’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY FURNITURE GALA, HIS MISTRESS UNVEILED THE ROCKING CHAIR MY DEAD MOTHER MADE FOR ME—THEN OUR 13-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER WHISPERED, “MOM, LET HER SIT IN IT.” “Mom, please don't get up. Not yet.” My thirteen-year-old daughter, Olivia, caught my hand just as I recognized the rocking chair being carried onto the stage. My husband's mistress was standing beside it in a

I stared at the back of the drawing. He is mine.

Rebecca’s handwriting. I recognized the sharp, aggressive loops from the design sketches she used to submit to my office.

But why was a drawing defaced by my husband's mistress inside a hidden locker containing my mother's medical secrets?

If Rebecca wanted to destroy Charles to avenge her father, why would she help him murder my mother?

I shoved the papers back into the envelope and drove straight to Bennett Fine Furnishings headquarters. The glass-front building I had helped build felt like a stranger's house.

The receptionist wouldn't look me in the eye. "Mrs. Bennett... Charles left strict orders. You aren't allowed upstairs."

"Watch me," I said, pushing past her toward the private elevators.

I barged into Charles's corner office, but he wasn't there.

Rebecca was.

She was hastily packing files into a leather briefcase, her eyes red and puffy. When she saw me, she flinched.

"Where is he?" I demanded, locking the office door behind me.

"He's at the bank," Rebecca said, her voice shaking. "He's freezing all the company accounts, Margaret. He's taking everything. He plans to file for bankruptcy and liquidate before you can divorce him."

I threw the manila envelope onto the glass desk. "I don't care about the money. I want to know why you helped him kill my mother."

Rebecca stared at the envelope. She reached out with a trembling hand and pulled out the child’s drawing with her handwriting on the back.

She gasped, tears spilling over her eyelashes. "Margaret... I didn't write this to Charles."

"Don't lie to me! It's your handwriting!"

"It is my handwriting!" she cried, pressing the drawing to her chest. "But I didn't write it to Charles. I wrote it to your mother."

I stopped. "What?"

Rebecca reached into her purse and pulled out a heavy, wooden rosary. The beads were worn smooth from years of prayer.

"My father gave me this before he died," Rebecca whispered. "After Charles ruined him, we had nothing. My dad drank himself to death. I wanted revenge. I got a job here under a fake name to destroy Charles."

She took a shaky breath. "But your mother found out. Evelyn caught me going through the company files two years ago."

"Mom knew who you were?"

"Yes. And instead of firing me, she took me to dinner. She told me she knew Charles had stolen my father’s designs. She said she was secretly building a case to force him out of the company and give me my father's shares back."

Rebecca pointed to the drawing. "I was angry that day. I crossed Charles out of the picture. I wrote He is mine because I wanted to be the one to ruin him. But your mother told me to wait. She said she had an ironclad contract that would destroy him legally."

"Then why did you sleep with him?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"I didn't!" Rebecca shouted. "I swear to God, Margaret, I never touched him! Charles made up the affair!"

I stared at her, my mind spinning wildly.

"He fabricated the affair to explain why he was transferring millions of dollars into offshore accounts under my name," Rebecca explained, sobbing. "He was framing me for embezzlement! He knew your mother was onto him, so he created a mistress as a scapegoat."

I stepped back, the floor feeling unsteady beneath my feet.