My skin prickled.
Marcus continued.
“I found a sealed civil case connected to Nicholas Bennett. I’m requesting records.”
“Can you get them tonight?”
“Some.”
“Do it.”
Rebecca interrupted.
“Marcus, search Ashford Private Capital.”
A pause.
“I know that name.”
“How?”
“Financial exploitation case. Mid-2010s.”
“Linda Pierce.”
Typing.
Then Marcus said something none of us expected.
“Oh.”
Rebecca leaned closer to the phone.
“What?”
“Linda Pierce isn’t Nathan’s mother.”
I stared at the speaker.
“What did you say?”
“She’s listed in an old property record as Linda Bennett.”
Ben frowned.
“Bennett.”
Marcus continued.
“Same address as Nicholas Bennett.”
“So she is his mother.”
“No.”
My chest tightened.
“Then who is she?”
Another pause.
“His wife.”
Nobody moved.
I heard the refrigerator motor hum.
A car passed outside.
Somewhere upstairs, one of the heating vents clicked.
Then I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
It came out thin and almost hysterical.
“His what?”
“Wife. Linda Bennett married Nicholas Bennett seventeen years ago in Clark County.”
Rebecca sat down hard.
Ben said, “She’s like sixty.”
“Nathan is forty-seven,” Marcus replied. “Linda was thirty-eight when they married. He was thirty.”
My mind struggled to rearrange itself.
Linda.
The woman who had spent twenty-two months calling herself Nathan’s mother.
The woman who hugged me at Thanksgiving.
The woman who gave me earrings for Christmas.
The woman who told me, with tears in her eyes, that she had always prayed Nathan would find “a good woman.”
His wife.
I whispered, “Are they still married?”
“I’m checking.”
Five minutes later, Marcus confirmed there was no divorce record.
Rebecca looked at me.
“If that holds, Nathan cannot legally marry you tomorrow.”
I stared at her.
“He never intended to?”
“Oh, I think he intended to perform the ceremony,” Rebecca said. “Whether he planned to file the license is another question.”
Ben’s face hardened.
“He wanted Mom to believe they were married.”
Rebecca nodded slowly.
“And if she signed those financial documents voluntarily afterward…”
“He wouldn’t need a legal marriage,” I finished.
Exactly.
The wedding had never been the goal.
