Chapter 8 - The Name Ben Had Never Mentioned
Eleven months after the coffee incident, I had begun forgetting the Bennetts for hours at a time.
That was how I knew healing was working.
Boredom returned.
Then Dad called.
“Nora.”
Something in his voice made me sit.
“What happened?”
“I found a name.”
“What name?”
“Catherine Holloway.”
Nothing.
“Should I know her?”
A pause.
“Apparently Ben does.”
A 2014 mortgage application listed:
BENJAMIN BENNETT.
Marital status:
MARRIED.
Spouse:
CATHERINE HOLLOWAY BENNETT.
I stared.
“Ben told me he had never been married.”
“So either the application is wrong…”
“Or my husband lied about having a wife.”
Records showed a divorce petition.
Then a dismissal.
Some later records were sealed or incomplete.
Linda had once told me Ben had a:
“Crazy girlfriend in his twenties who tried to destroy him.”
No name.
No marriage.
Dana finally admitted she remembered Catherine.
Barely.
“Mom said we were never supposed to talk about her.”
“Why?”
“She lied about Ben.”
“About what?”
Dana’s expression tightened.
“Money.”
Catherine had inherited a duplex in Cincinnati from her grandfather.
During her marriage, the Bennetts wanted to pledge it to finance their second restaurant.
Catherine refused.
Linda accused her of:
Not trusting family.
Controlling Ben.
Thinking she was better than everybody.
The language was identical.
My pulse quickened.
Then Dad’s investigator found one more thing.
Catherine had attended a charity event before meeting Ben.
Sponsored by:
CARTER DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION.
My father’s foundation.
The same annual event where Ben told me we had first met “by accident.”
I stopped breathing.
Maybe coincidence.
Maybe not.
Dad said the same thing he always said.
May you like
“Don’t decide before evidence does.”
Then Catherine contacted him herself.
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