Chapter 3 - THE ATTORNEY AT THE GATE
The following afternoon, Derek returned to Hawthorne House in a charcoal sports car and found the front gate closed. A temporary security officer stood beside the keypad.
Parked beyond the gate was Naomi Mercer’s sedan, and beside it waited a process server holding a thick envelope. Sienna rode in the passenger seat.
She had agreed to return only because Derek promised he would prove Audrey had overreacted and that the property legally belonged to him.
He had spent the drive calling the previous day a misunderstanding that lawyers would quickly correct. Derek lowered the window. “Open the gate.” The officer remained polite. “Mr. Halston, Ms.
Mercer needs to speak with you first.” Derek’s jaw tightened. Naomi stepped from her car with a slim folder. She did not raise her voice or block the roadway.
She explained that Audrey had revoked permission for Derek to occupy Hawthorne House and that access would be scheduled for personal property retrieval. “This is my residence,” Derek said. “It has been your residence,” Naomi replied.
“It has never been your property.” Sienna turned slowly in her seat. The process server approached and confirmed Derek’s identity. He handed over the divorce petition and accompanying notices.
Derek looked at the first page, then flipped rapidly until he found the property schedule. His expression changed when he saw the trust listed as owner of Hawthorne House. “This is nonsense,” he said.
“Audrey and I own this together.” Naomi opened her folder and held out a certified deed copy and the occupancy acknowledgment bearing Derek’s signature. “You signed this four years ago. The trust owns the property.
Audrey holds the beneficial occupancy rights. You were granted residence through her permission.” Sienna took the deed before Derek could stop her. Her eyes moved across the page, then to his signature on the second document.
The silence inside the car became heavier than shouting. Finally, she looked at Derek. “You said this house belonged to you.” Derek stared forward. “It’s complicated.” Sienna laughed once, without humor.
“That is exactly what your mother said yesterday.” Naomi did not react. She explained that Derek could collect clothing, work files, medication, and other personal items during a supervised two-hour window.
Furniture, artwork, electronics, and household property would remain pending inventory unless ownership was clearly documented. Derek stepped out of the car. “Audrey cannot keep my daughter from me.” “No one said she could,” Naomi replied.
“The temporary custody request proposes safe contact immediately. Your attorney can respond through the court. You should retain one today.” The answer denied Derek the fight he seemed prepared to perform.
He looked toward the house, as though expecting the walls themselves to recognize him. For years, he had introduced guests beneath those columns with the possessive confidence of a man unveiling his kingdom. Now the gate remained closed.
Sienna stepped from the passenger side and handed him the deed. “You told me Audrey left months ago.” Derek lowered his voice.
“Not here.” “You told me the nursery was for a staging project.” Naomi’s eyes flicked toward Sienna, but she said nothing. Derek’s face reddened. He warned Sienna not to believe a lawyer hired to destroy him.
Sienna looked toward the second-floor windows where she had awakened the previous day beneath Audrey’s blanket. “I believe the room,” she said. She walked away from the car and called for a rideshare.
Derek tried to follow, but the process server reminded him there were additional pages requiring acknowledgment of receipt. Sienna stopped near the shoulder, opened her phone, and began deleting photographs.
Inside the service packet, another notice demanded preservation of emails, text messages, lender communications, accounting records, and documents connected to Halston Development Group. Derek read that page twice. His anger faded into something closer to alarm.
“You’re fishing,” he said. Naomi closed her folder. “Then the records will show that.” Derek’s attorney called twenty minutes later.
His name was Martin Keene, a respected family-law litigator who sounded irritated that Derek had waited until after being served to contact him. Martin spoke privately with Naomi, then advised Derek to accept the supervised retrieval arrangement.
The gate opened at four o’clock. Derek entered with the security officer and a neutral inventory specialist. Sienna did not go inside.
She sat in the rideshare until Derek disappeared through the front door, then asked the driver to wait while she sent one final message. It went to Audrey. I am sorry. He lied to me about everything.
I have messages you may need. At the cottage, Audrey read the message while Maisie slept on her shoulder. Her first reaction was anger. Sienna had still entered her bedroom. She had still drunk champagne beneath family photographs.
Yet the message suggested Derek had constructed separate realities for both women. Audrey forwarded it to Naomi and replied with one sentence: Please send anything relevant to my attorney. Sienna did.
Over the next hour, Naomi received screenshots spanning seven months. Derek had told Sienna he was divorced in practice but waiting for paperwork. He claimed Audrey lived in Boston with family.
He said Hawthorne House belonged to him before marriage and that he was renovating the nursery into a design studio. More troubling were messages about money.
Derek repeatedly described a major real-estate financing deal secured by “my Richmond estate.” He told Sienna the transaction would close before autumn and that afterward he would buy a townhouse downtown for them.
One message, dated three weeks before Maisie’s birth, made Naomi sit upright. Need Audrey’s signature on one final family authorization. She never reads anything anymore. Audrey read the line while feeding Maisie. Her hand began trembling.
She remembered the stack of documents Derek had placed beside her coffee that same morning. He had called them routine insurance updates and become furious when she said she would review them later.
Naomi requested the lender’s complete file through counsel. She also instructed Audrey not to confront Derek. If there had been an attempted misrepresentation, they needed records rather than accusations.
Audrey agreed, although anger now moved through her with unfamiliar steadiness. At Hawthorne House, Derek packed three suitcases and two garment bags. He paused in the nursery doorway and stared at the empty crib.
The inventory specialist asked whether he wanted anything from the room. Derek said no, then changed his mind and took a framed photograph from the shelf.
It showed Audrey eight months pregnant, laughing while Derek painted the wooden moon. The security officer documented the item. Derek placed it facedown inside a suitcase.
When he left the house, Lorraine was waiting outside the gate in her sedan. She had been calling Naomi’s office all afternoon, demanding access as Maisie’s grandmother.
Derek climbed into her passenger seat and slammed the door hard enough to shake the window. “What did Audrey do?” Lorraine asked. Derek held up the preservation notice. “She’s trying to ruin me.” Lorraine read the document.
The color left her face when she reached the section naming Halston Development and the lender. She looked at her son, and for the first time since Audrey returned home, she did not defend him.
“What exactly did you submit?” she asked. Derek looked away. That evening, Naomi received another unexpected message, this one from a junior accountant at Halston Development.
He said he had been instructed months earlier to list Hawthorne House as a company-affiliated asset despite concerns about ownership. The accountant had kept copies. Audrey stood by the cottage window while Naomi read the email aloud.
Maisie slept in a bassinet nearby, one tiny hand resting beside her cheek. The betrayal had already moved beyond an affair. It now had dates, documents, signatures, and people who had been told different versions of Audrey’s life.
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Naomi closed the laptop. “Tomorrow we find out how far this goes.” Audrey looked toward the dark trees beyond the glass. She had entered Hawthorne House carrying a newborn and expecting an explanation for seventeen unanswered calls.
She had walked out with silence. Now the silence was beginning to speak. Audrey understood there would be much more to hear.
