Chapter 3 - A House Built on Lies
Josephine did not scream.
That surprised her.
She simply stared at Nathaniel’s face until it stopped looking like the man she married and started looking like evidence.
Mateo reached for the phone.
Josephine pulled it away.
“Don’t.”
“He wants a response.”
“I know.”
“He also wants you emotional.”
“I know that too.”
Mateo studied her.
The woman who had nearly collapsed twenty minutes earlier was gone.
Or maybe she wasn’t gone.
Maybe Josephine had simply discovered anger was stronger than grief.
She enlarged the photograph.
Edward Kline’s hands appeared restrained, though there was no visible injury.
Nathaniel stood behind him.
Same eyes.
Same slightly crooked smile.
God, she had once loved that smile.
Now she saw something she hadn’t seen when they were twenty-seven.
Possession.
Nathaniel had always smiled like the room belonged to him.
Sometimes like Josephine did too.
“Where was this taken?” she asked.
Luca examined the photograph.
“No location data.”
“Background?”
“Concrete wall. Industrial lighting.”
Mateo looked over his shoulder.
“Search properties connected to Mercer Urban.”
Luca nodded.
Josephine remained focused on Nathaniel.
“When we were married, he hated having his picture taken.”
Mateo looked at her.
“He said photos created unnecessary records.”
“He was planning this for longer than you thought.”
She swallowed.
“Apparently.”
Mateo took the phone carefully.
“What do you want to do?”
Josephine almost laughed.
“You’re asking me?”
“It’s your husband.”
“He stole from you.”
“He tried to frame you.”
“And Kline?”
Mateo’s eyes hardened.
“If Nathaniel hurts him, that becomes something else.”
Josephine looked toward the dark window.
“Edward helped fake his death.”
“We believe so.”
“He helped forge my name.”
“Probably.”
“He may have known Nathaniel was setting me up.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m supposed to risk myself to save him?”
“No.”
Mateo’s answer came immediately.
Josephine turned.
“No?”
“I’m not asking you to save anyone.”
“But Nathaniel is.”
“He no longer gets to decide what you do.”
The words pierced somewhere deeper than fear.
Nathaniel had decided what Josephine ate.
What she wore to important dinners.
Which clients were worth taking.
Which friends were bad influences.
Whether Miller Studio should survive.
Even in death, she had continued arranging her life around his memory.
Now Mateo said it as though it were obvious.
Nathaniel no longer gets to decide.
Josephine sat slowly.
“What happens if I don’t go?”
“We find Kline another way.”
“And Nathaniel?”
“We find him too.”
She met Mateo’s eyes.
“And then?”
Silence.
That answer frightened her more than words would have.
“Do you kill people?”
Luca became very interested in his laptop.
Mateo didn’t blink.
“Sometimes men around me make choices with consequences.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
“Do you?”
A long pause.
“I have.”
Josephine inhaled.
“Recently?”
“Does the date change what you think of me?”
“Yes.”
Mateo nodded.
“Then I’d rather not manipulate your answer.”
It was the strangest honesty she had encountered in years.
Nathaniel always lied when truth threatened his image.
Mateo simply handed her ugly truths and allowed her to decide what they meant.
“I don’t want anyone killed because of me.”
“Understood.”
“Not Nathaniel either.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“After everything?”
“I want him exposed.”
“That can be more painful.”
“I hope so.”
Something almost approving moved through Mateo’s expression.
“Then we do this your way.”
Josephine frowned.
“You would really let the police handle him?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Mateo.”
“I said nobody dies.”
She folded her arms.
“That sentence contains too much creative interpretation.”
Luca coughed.
Mateo looked at him.
“Problem?”
“No, sir.”
Josephine knew he was hiding another smile.
By two in the morning, they had identified three potential locations.
A warehouse near Archer Avenue.
An abandoned printing facility west of Cicero.
A partially renovated building owned by Mercer Urban.
Mateo’s men moved quietly.
Josephine stayed in the apartment.
She hated staying.
She hated more that Mateo was right.
Going with him would give Nathaniel exactly what he wanted.
At 2:37 a.m., Edward Kline was found.
Alive.
Alone.
Nathaniel had abandoned him fifteen minutes before Mateo’s men arrived.
Kline was brought to Josephine’s apartment.
He looked fifteen years older than the last time she saw him.
His expensive suit was wrinkled.
His face gray.
When he saw Josephine, he stopped.
“Josie.”
She stiffened.
Only Nathaniel’s close friends called her Josie.
“Don’t.”
Kline lowered his eyes.
Mateo stood near the window.
“Start talking.”
Kline looked at him.
Fear multiplied.
“I can explain.”
Mateo’s voice stayed calm.
“That phrase has never preceded a good explanation.”
Josephine stepped forward.
“You told me my husband was dead.”
Kline swallowed.
“I believed he was.”
“Lie.”
“I—”
“You signed the identification documents.”
“The coroner—”
“You changed the dental records.”
Kline looked at Mateo.
Wrong move.
Josephine slammed her palm on the desk.
“Look at me.”
Kline did.
“You stood next to me at Nathaniel’s funeral.”
His face crumpled.
“Josephine—”
“You handed me a tissue while I cried over an empty coffin.”
“There was a body.”
“That makes it worse.”
He sat heavily.
“I didn’t know everything.”
“How much did you know?”
Kline stared at his hands.
“Nathaniel came to me fourteen months ago.”
Before the supposed accident.
“He said he was in trouble. Financial trouble. He said people were threatening him.”
Mateo gave a humorless smile.
“I hadn’t met him yet.”
Kline continued quickly.
“He told me the only way out was to disappear.”
“So you helped him.”
“He had information about me.”
“What information?”
Kline looked ashamed.
“I had diverted client trust funds years ago. Repaid them, but—”
“He blackmailed you.”
“Yes.”
Josephine closed her eyes.
Nathaniel had collected weaknesses the way other people collected business cards.
“What about the body?”
“I don’t know who it was.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I swear.”
Mateo spoke.
“How were the dental records switched?”
Kline hesitated.
Mateo took one step closer.
Kline answered.
“A technician at a private dental lab.”
“Name?”
“Samuel Voss.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Mateo looked toward Luca.
Another search began.
Josephine asked the question she feared most.
“Did Nathaniel plan to frame me?”
Kline’s silence answered.
“When?”
“Josephine—”
“When?”
“From the beginning.”
She went still.
“What beginning?”
“Mercer Urban.”
“How long?”
“Almost four years.”
Her marriage had lasted seven.
Nathaniel had been building his escape while they still shared Sunday breakfasts.
“He used Miller Studio because your company had clean records,” Kline said. “Strong reputation. No debt. He created documents making it look like you approved the investment structure.”
“Why Harbor House?”
“Property value. Zoning. Your plans made the acquisition look legitimate.”
Josephine felt physically ill.
“The project was for women escaping abusive homes.”
Kline looked down.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Her voice became quiet.
“I spent hundreds of hours designing places where women could close a door and know nobody controlling them could walk through it.”
Kline couldn’t look at her.
“And Nathaniel used that project to steal money.”
“Yes.”
Mateo’s face had gone cold.
Josephine suddenly understood something.
Nathaniel hadn’t merely dismissed Harbor House.
He had needed it dead.
If she kept developing the project, she might have discovered what he was doing with the land.
So he convinced her Miller Studio was failing.
Convinced her clients were disappearing.
Convinced her work had become embarrassing.
“How many clients did Nathaniel interfere with?”
Kline stared.
Josephine moved closer.
“How many?”
“At least four.”
The room vanished around her.
“What did he do?”
“Called them privately. Suggested Miller Studio was financially unstable.”
Her throat tightened.
“The Lakeshore proposal?”
Kline looked miserable.
“He contacted the developer.”
Josephine whispered, “I lost because of him.”
“Yes.”
Not because her design failed.
Not because she wasn’t good enough.
Nathaniel had sabotaged her.
Every night she spent staring at the ceiling wondering when she had stopped being talented—
Manufactured.
Every client who suddenly became distant—
Manipulated.
Every argument where Nathaniel said he was only trying to protect her from humiliating herself—
A lie.
Josephine turned away before anyone saw her cry.
Mateo’s voice came quietly behind her.
“Josephine.”
“Don’t.”
He stayed where he was.
Good.
She needed one thing Nathaniel rarely gave her.
Space.
After a minute, she wiped her face.
When she turned back, there was no softness left in her expression.
“Where is the missing money?”
Kline shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“The key?”
“Nathaniel believed it opened a deposit box containing access codes.”
“What access codes?”
“To an encrypted account.”
Mateo’s attention sharpened.
“How much?”
“Nine hundred thousand.”
The exact amount still missing.
Josephine frowned.
“If Nathaniel didn’t know where the key was, why hide the account?”
“He didn’t hide the key.”
“What?”
Kline looked at Josephine.
“You did.”
She stared.
“I didn’t even know what it opened.”
“Nathaniel kept it in his desk. You moved it.”
Memory struck.
One afternoon.
Nathaniel had been traveling.
Josephine was searching for stamps.
She found the little brass key beneath paperwork.
Nathaniel hated anyone touching his desk.
So, irritated by years of his rules, she had done something childish.
She hid it.
Taped beneath another drawer.
When Nathaniel came home, he spent hours looking.
He never asked her.
Because asking would admit he had lost something.
Josephine had forgotten until tonight.
A tiny act of defiance.
It had accidentally trapped nearly a million dollars.
Mateo stared at her.
“You stole his key?”
“I relocated it.”
For the first time, Mateo Bianchi laughed.
It transformed his face.
Josephine disliked how much she noticed.
“You may be my favorite criminal,” he said.
“I am not a criminal.”
“Key relocation can be serious.”
Despite everything, Josephine laughed too.
It lasted only a second.
Then Luca’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Sir.”
Mateo turned.
“We found Samuel Voss.”
“The technician?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Luca hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“He says Nathaniel didn’t choose a random body for the crash.”
Josephine’s smile vanished.
Mateo’s gaze hardened.
“Who was it?”
Luca looked at Josephine.
“The man in that car was someone connected to Miller Studio.”
Josephine felt cold spread through her.
“Who?”
Luca said the name.
And Josephine had to grab the desk to remain standing.
May you like
Because the man buried beneath Nathaniel Miller’s headstone had once worked for her.
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