[CHAPTER 5]
I read those four words until they stopped looking like English.
Then we remove her.
“What does that mean?” Megan asked.
I could not answer.
Detective Chen had warned me not to assume murder.
“Remove” could mean force me out of the house.
Push me into divorce.
Have me declared incompetent.
But fear does not care about alternative explanations.
Fear hears the worst one first.
That night, I dreamed Ryan was standing over my bed holding the metal broom.
When I woke, Megan was shaking my shoulder.
“You were screaming.”
I sat upright.
My heart hammered.
“I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t spend months looking over my shoulder.”
“Then don’t do it alone.”
Laura said the same thing the next morning.
She arranged for a temporary security guard at my home once I decided to return.
She also recommended a forensic accountant.
His name was Marcus Hale.
He came to my office carrying two laptops and the expression of a man who enjoyed finding money people tried to hide.
“Your husband was sloppy,” he said after reviewing the initial bank records.
“That’s good?”
“For you.”
The forty-eight thousand dollars had been transferred to an account controlled by a company called RC Consulting.
“Ryan Cole,” I said.
“Probably.”
“Does the company exist?”
“Barely.”
Marcus found the registration.
Ryan had created it five months earlier.
The business address was a mailbox.
No website.
No employees.
No obvious revenue.
But money had been moving through it.
Not just ours.
Deposits appeared every few weeks.
Ten thousand.
Eight thousand.
Fifteen thousand.
Then withdrawals.
Cash.
Transfers.
Payments to credit cards I didn’t know existed.
“How much?” I asked.
Marcus looked at the screen.
“Over two hundred thousand dollars in six months.”
My mouth went dry.
“Where did he get that?”
“We’ll find out.”
The answer arrived faster than I expected.
One incoming transfer came from my company.
I stared at the vendor name attached to it.
North Bridge Supply.
Ryan worked with them.
Or had.
My company purchased specialized packaging through North Bridge.
Ryan had helped negotiate several contracts.
Marcus leaned closer.
“This payment went from North Bridge to RC Consulting three days after your company paid a large invoice.”
My stomach turned.
“A kickback.”
“Possibly.”
We checked another deposit.
Same pattern.
Then another.
Ryan had been receiving money from a vendor tied to my business.
I wanted to vomit.
I had given him that job because he told me nobody respected him.
I had defended him when employees complained he was difficult.
I had vouched for him.
And he may have been stealing behind my back.
Laura immediately contacted my company’s outside counsel.
By afternoon, North Bridge’s owner had been notified that an internal investigation was underway.
Ryan’s former supervisor claimed ignorance.
But one manager abruptly stopped answering calls.
That told me enough.
While Marcus traced money, police traced messages.
The threatening emails had been sent through a privacy service.
The IP addresses were hidden.
But one mistake gave detectives a lead.
The first email had been accessed through a recovery account linked to an old phone number.
Diane’s.
“She sent them?” I asked.
“Possibly,” Detective Chen said. “Or someone used her account.”
I laughed bitterly.
“There’s always an alternative.”
“Until there isn’t.”
Diane was brought in for questioning.
She denied everything.
Then detectives showed her the recovered text exchange with Ryan.
Her attorney ended the interview.
That same afternoon, something unexpected happened.
Travis called me.
I nearly ignored him.
Then I remembered he had entered my house.
I answered.
“What?”
His voice shook.
“I need to talk.”
“Call the police.”
“I already did.”
I sat straighter.
“What happened?”
“Ryan is blaming me.”
“For what?”
“For the emails. The paperwork. Everything.”
“You broke into my house for him.”
“He said you knew.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“I know. I know that sounds stupid.”
“It sounds like a lie.”
He swallowed loudly.
“Ryan paid me.”
There it was.
“How much?”
“Five grand.”
“To steal my laptop?”
“To collect the box from your office.”
“What box?”
“The estate papers. Your computer. Some tax files.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Why?”
“He said he needed proof you were hiding marital assets.”
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
The honesty surprised me.
“Then why did you do it?”
“I owed money.”
“Ryan knew.”
“Yes.”
Of course he did.
Ryan collected weaknesses the way other people collected photographs.
“What do you want from me, Travis?”
“I want you to know something before he gets out again.”
My skin chilled.
“What?”
“The night before Diane hit you, Ryan asked me if I knew anyone who could get prescription sedatives.”
I stopped breathing.
“Why?”
“He said you weren’t sleeping.”
“I never asked for medication.”
“I know.”
“Did you get them?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I believed he was scared.
I did not know if I believed anything else.
“What kind?”
“He asked for something that could make a person confused. Forgetful.”
The room seemed to shrink.
My mind raced backward.
There had been nights when I woke feeling strange.
Heavy.
Foggy.
Once, three months earlier, I had fallen asleep at dinner after drinking half a glass of wine.
Ryan laughed and said I was exhausted.
Another time, I woke with no memory of going to bed.
I had dismissed it.
Stress.
Long workdays.
Too little sleep.
I called Detective Chen immediately.
Then I called my doctor.
My hands shook as I asked whether old medical tests could show anything.
Probably not, after months.
But my doctor asked a different question.
“Claire, have you had any unexplained symptoms recently?”
I thought about the headaches.
The fog.
The sudden exhaustion.
“Yes.”
Then I remembered something else.
Ryan had started making me tea every night.
He never made tea.
Not before that spring.
That evening, Detective Chen searched the items recovered from Ryan’s hotel more carefully.
Inside his toiletry bag, officers found an unmarked pill bottle.
The pills were sent for testing.
The next morning, the lab called.
They were prescription sedatives.
May you like
Not prescribed to Ryan.
And according to the pharmacy code on several tablets, they came from a prescription issued to Diane.
