Chapter 2 - What I Was Worth Dead
Detective Torres asked me not to touch my phone.
That sounded simple.
It wasn’t.
My phone contained my life.
Richard.
Chloe.
My employees.
Clients.
Banking alerts.
Family photographs.
Thirty years of ordinary routines.
Torres placed it inside an evidence bag.
“If Richard calls?”
“We’ll decide what information he gets.”
“He’ll know something is wrong.”
“He already knows you came to the hospital.”
I looked at her.
“How?”
“You told him?”
“I texted Chloe from the cab.”
Torres’s expression tightened.
“What did you say?”
“That I was going to the ER.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
At 3:06 a.m., my phone lit up inside the clear bag.
RICHARD.
Nobody answered.
Again.
RICHARD.
Then CHLOE.
Then Richard again.
I watched the screen glow and go dark.
For twenty-eight years, I had answered whenever my husband called.
That night, silence became my first act of resistance.
Dr. Patel arranged treatment while Torres began asking questions.
Insurance.
Property.
Businesses.
Wills.
Trusts.
I answered automatically.
Our primary home was worth roughly $1.8 million and fully paid.
My accounting firm was worth several million more.
There were retirement accounts, investments, commercial property interests, and a life insurance policy I remembered purchasing years ago.
“How much insurance?” Torres asked.
“Two million.”
“Beneficiary?”
“Richard.”
She wrote it down.
Then I remembered something.
“Wait.”
Torres looked up.
“Last year Richard said we should review our coverage.”
“Did you?”
“I thought he did.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer embarrassed me.
I could tell you the cash flow of a company after looking at six months of statements.
Yet I couldn’t tell a detective what my own husband had done with my insurance.
Because I had trusted him.
By sunrise, I had a temporary plan.
Richard would be told I had been admitted for severe dehydration and neurological testing.
Nothing more.
At 7:41 a.m., Detective Torres allowed me to send one text.
Doctors are keeping me overnight. Tests. I’m exhausted. Will call later.
Richard answered in less than thirty seconds.
Want me to bring your vitamin drink?
I stared at the message.
Torres saw my face.
“What?”
I turned the screen toward her.
She read it.
Then looked at me.
Neither of us spoke.
The drink.
Again.
“No,” she said quietly. “He absolutely does not bring you anything.”
I typed:
No. Hospital says nothing except what they provide.
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Finally:
Okay. Love you.
Love you.
Two words that had once made me feel safe.
Now they made my skin crawl.
Later that morning, one of my employees, Rachel Kim, received an unusual request.
Rachel was my operations manager and the only person at Mercer Financial who knew every internal system nearly as well as I did.
Torres allowed me to call her from a hospital phone.
“Rachel, I need something confidential.”
“Of course.”
“Do not tell Richard or Chloe.”
Silence.
Then:
“Okay.”
“Pull every company access log involving Richard for the last twelve months.”
“Helen… Richard doesn’t have company access.”
“He shouldn’t.”
Another silence.
“I’ll check.”
Thirty-five minutes later, Rachel called back.
Her voice had changed.
“Helen?”
“Yes.”
“We have a problem.”
I closed my eyes.
“What?”
“Someone logged into your administrative account eleven times over the last four months.”
“That was probably me.”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the logins happened after midnight.”
“So?”
“You were in Boston during two of them.”
My pulse accelerated.
“IP address?”
“Your home.”
I looked at Torres.
She was watching me.
“What files were accessed?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Helen…”
“Tell me.”
“Your personal estate folder.”
I stopped breathing.
“And?”
“Company valuation documents.”
“And?”
“Your shareholder agreement.”
“And?”
“One more.”
“What?”
“The emergency succession plan.”
That document specified what happened to Mercer Financial if I died or became incapacitated.
Richard had no role in the company.
But Chloe did.
Two years earlier, I had given my daughter a small nonvoting ownership interest as part of my long-term estate planning.
If I died, a trust structure could eventually transfer significantly more to her.
I looked at Torres.
“My daughter benefits too.”
Torres didn’t react.
“Benefiting doesn’t prove involvement.”
“I know.”
But the sentence Chloe had spoken only hours earlier returned to me.
You’re not twenty-five.
What do you expect?
Had she truly believed I was exaggerating?
Or had she needed me to believe that?
Rachel continued.
“There’s something else.”
I gripped the phone.
“Tell me.”
“A PDF was downloaded.”
“Which one?”
“Your company valuation.”
My firm had been valued at $6.4 million during the previous year.
Someone in my house wanted to know exactly what it was worth.
Detective Torres requested digital records through the proper investigative channels.
Meanwhile, my treatment began.
By afternoon, sensation was returning slightly to my fingers.
My thoughts became clearer.
And clarity brought memories.
Richard suddenly insisting on handling my supplements.
Richard accompanying me to one doctor but answering questions for me.
Richard telling Chloe that I was becoming “obsessed with my health.”
Richard suggesting I reduce my workload.
Richard asking whether I had updated my will.
Separate moments.
Harmless individually.
Together?
They formed a pattern.
At 4:22 p.m., Rachel called again.
“Helen, I found something strange in the accounting system.”
“What?”
“A payment.”
“From the company?”
“No. That’s why I almost missed it. It appears in a scanned personal statement attached to your tax records.”
“How much?”
“Forty-eight thousand dollars.”
“To whom?”
“A company called Northstar Consulting LLC.”
I frowned.
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither have I.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“From which account?”
“Joint investment account ending 7712.”
My stomach tightened.
Richard managed that account.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Rachel inhaled.
“There were three payments.”
“How much total?”
“One hundred forty-four thousand dollars.”
I closed my eyes.
Torres took notes.
“Can you determine who owns Northstar?”
“I’m working on it.”
Then Rachel said something that made every person in the hospital room go still.
“Helen, the last payment memo says ‘Phase Three.’”
Phase Three.
Not consulting.
Not renovations.
Not investment.
A phase.
Something planned.
Something progressing.
Torres immediately stood.
“Rachel, don’t investigate further from your office. Preserve everything exactly as it is.”
After the call ended, she turned to me.
“Helen, until we know what Northstar is, you do not go home.”
I nodded.
But someone else had already begun moving.
At 5:03 p.m., my hospital phone rang.
The nurse answered.
Then looked at me.
“It’s your husband.”
Torres motioned for her to put it on speaker.
Richard’s voice filled the room.
“Helen? Sweetheart?”
My heart hammered.
“Hi.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better.”
“Doctors figure out what’s wrong?”
I looked at Torres.
“Not yet.”
A pause.
Then Richard laughed softly.
“See? I told you. Probably stress.”
My hands tightened beneath the blanket.
Then he said:
“Chloe and I are coming to get you.”
Torres shook her head.
“I’m staying another night.”
Another pause.
Longer this time.
Then Richard asked something that sounded ordinary.
But it wasn’t.
“Did they do blood tests?”
Detective Torres slowly raised her eyes to mine.
And in that moment, I knew Richard wasn’t calling because he was worried about me.
May you like
He was calling because he wanted to know what the doctors had found.
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