Chapter 2 - My Father’s NameI hadn’t used my father’s position to solve a problem since I was sixteen.
And even then, it hadn’t exactly worked in my favor.
I had gotten caught speeding through a residential neighborhood, and when the officer realized who my father was, he called him personally.
Dad arrived before the tow truck.
He apologized to the officer.
Then he took my keys away for two months.
“Your last name doesn’t make you special,” he told me afterward. “It makes you accountable.”
I never forgot it.
Which was why Captain Hale’s reaction made me uncomfortable.
“Yes,” I said. “Commissioner Potter is my father. But I don’t want special treatment.”
Captain Hale gave me a strange look.
“This isn’t about special treatment.”
He glanced toward Ethan.
“It’s about making sure nobody receives special treatment in the other direction.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Captain Hale ignored him.
“Mrs. Sullivan, has anyone threatened you recently?”
I looked at Vanessa.
“No direct threats.”
Vanessa laughed.
“This is ridiculous.”
Hale turned.
“Ma’am, what’s your name?”
“Vanessa Cole.”
“And your relationship to Mr. Sullivan?”
She opened her mouth.
Ethan answered first.
“She works for me.”
Captain Hale looked between them.
“At four-thirty on a Wednesday?”
“We had a meeting.”
“Inside his car?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It becomes my business if either of you has information regarding felony property damage, criminal intimidation, or a possible threat against a pregnant woman.”
Vanessa stopped smiling.
Ethan stepped closer to Hale.
“My wife is emotional.”
I stared at him.
Captain Hale’s expression changed instantly.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“I strongly recommend you stop speaking about your wife as though pregnancy makes her incapable of understanding what happened to her own vehicle.”
Ethan flushed.
I should have felt vindicated.
Instead, I felt sick.
Because I knew Ethan.
Whenever he was cornered, he attacked.
He turned toward me.
“Tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
“That you followed Vanessa last week.”
“I didn’t follow her.”
“You showed up at the Ridgeway Hotel.”
“I was meeting my cousin for lunch.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“She took pictures of me.”
“Because you were kissing my husband in the parking lot.”
Silence.
Even Malik, the hospital guard, looked away.
Ethan’s face turned crimson.
Vanessa recovered first.
“That never happened.”
I unlocked my phone.
“I have photographs.”
Ethan moved toward me.
“Claire.”
Captain Hale stepped between us.
“Stay where you are.”
“I just want to talk to my wife.”
“She doesn’t appear interested.”
“She’s carrying my child.”
My voice came out sharper than I expected.
“Our child isn’t a permission slip.”
He looked at me like I had slapped him.
Good.
One of the officers photographing the SUV called Captain Hale over.
They spoke quietly near the driver’s door.
I couldn’t hear everything.
Only fragments.
“…camera…”
“…south entrance…”
“…license plate…”
Vanessa was suddenly very interested in her phone.
Captain Hale returned.
“We have surveillance footage.”
Her head snapped up.
Ethan swallowed.
I felt my heartbeat quicken.
“How much?”
“Enough to identify a vehicle entering this level shortly before the damage occurred.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“So?”
“The car is registered to you.”
For several seconds, Vanessa didn’t move.
Then she laughed.
It sounded forced.
“I park here all the time.”
“Do you work here?”
“No.”
“Were you a patient today?”
“No.”
“Visiting someone?”
She looked at Ethan.
“I don’t remember.”
Captain Hale nodded.
“You don’t remember why your car entered a hospital parking garage less than thirty minutes before Mrs. Sullivan discovered her vehicle destroyed?”
“I said I don’t remember.”
Ethan interrupted.
“This is getting absurd.”
Captain Hale looked at him.
“Mr. Sullivan, you’re free to leave.”
“Fine.”
“But Ms. Cole isn’t.”
Vanessa’s confidence finally cracked.
“What?”
“We need to ask you additional questions.”
“You can’t detain me because my car was in a parking garage.”
“That’s not the only evidence.”
The officer beside Hale held up a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a small silver charm.
A letter V surrounded by rhinestones.
Vanessa instinctively touched her wrist.
Her bracelet was missing one charm.
Nobody had to say anything.
She looked down.
Too late.
Captain Hale noticed.
So did I.
Vanessa’s face drained of color.
“That isn’t mine.”
Hale didn’t argue.
He simply said, “We’ll determine that.”
Ethan pulled me aside before anyone could stop him.
“What are you doing?”
I stared at him.
“What am I doing?”
“Do you understand what happens if she gets arrested?”
For one ridiculous second, I waited for him to mention our marriage.
Our daughter.
My safety.
Instead he said, “The merger could collapse.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
Ethan Sullivan’s company, Sullivan Urban Development, was in the middle of the biggest deal of his career.
A $480 million redevelopment project.
Vanessa had been leading public relations.
“You’re worried about the merger?”
“Three hundred people work for me.”
“And one woman destroyed my car.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You do.”
His eyes shifted.
That tiny movement told me everything.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew she was here.”
“I knew she was upset.”
“With me?”
“She thinks you’re trying to ruin her reputation.”
“She’s sleeping with my husband.”
He lowered his voice.
“Keep your voice down.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
Then I noticed Captain Hale watching us.
Ethan leaned closer.
“If you push this, Claire, everything changes.”
“It already has.”
He exhaled.
“Don’t make me choose.”
That sentence broke something inside me.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just permanently.
“I think you already did.”
I walked away from him.
Vanessa was taken to the station for questioning.
Not arrested.
Not yet.
Ethan left with her attorney.
Not with me.
Captain Hale offered to arrange transportation.
“I’ll call my father.”
He hesitated.
“Commissioner Potter doesn’t know?”
“No.”
Hale almost smiled.
“He’s going to be angry.”
“You know him?”
“Twenty-four years.”
I dialed Dad.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hey, kiddo. How’s my granddaughter?”
My throat closed.
“Dad?”
Silence.
His voice changed instantly.
“What happened?”
I looked at my ruined SUV.
“I need you.”
He didn’t ask another question.
“Where?”
Twenty-five minutes later, my father walked off the elevator.
Richard Potter was sixty-three, six feet tall, with gray hair and the same calm blue eyes I saw every morning in the mirror.
He hugged me first.
Not Commissioner Potter.
Not the city’s top cop.
Dad.
Then he looked at the SUV.
His entire body went still.
“Who did this?”
“We’re investigating,” Captain Hale said.
Dad’s eyes moved to Hale.
“Marcus.”
“Richard.”
“No favors.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“No leaks.”
“Agreed.”
“No shortcuts.”
“Absolutely.”
Dad turned back to me.
“Where’s Ethan?”
That was the question I had been dreading.
“He left.”
“With who?”
I swallowed.
“Vanessa.”
My father closed his eyes.
For one second, he looked older.
Then he opened them.
“Come home with me.”
“I need clothes.”
“We’ll get them tomorrow.”
“I live with my husband.”
Dad looked directly at me.
“No, Claire.”
His voice was quiet.
“You own half a house with a man who abandoned his pregnant wife beside a vandalized vehicle.”
I hated how true that sounded.
We were halfway to the elevator when one of the detectives called Captain Hale.
Hale listened.
Then turned toward me.
“Mrs. Sullivan?”
I stopped.
“We found something else in the surveillance footage.”
“What?”
“A second person.”
Ethan had already left.
But somehow I knew.
“Who?”
May you like
Captain Hale hesitated.
“Your husband.”
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