Chapter 4 - Someone Outside the Window
Detective Reed immediately ordered everyone away from the windows.
The house changed in seconds.
What had been a dining room became a protected scene.
Curtains were closed.
Exterior lights came on.
Officers searched the property.
Audrey stood in the center of the room holding her phone.
The photograph remained on the screen.
Someone had been close enough to photograph her.
Close enough to watch Dominic’s arrest.
Close enough to know exactly when the silver tray appeared.
“Do you recognize the number?” Reed asked.
“No.”
“Don’t respond.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Reed looked at her.
“I believe you.”
Those three words affected Audrey more than they should have.
For years, every concern had been questioned.
Every memory challenged.
Every fear minimized.
Now a stranger simply believed the evidence.
Twenty minutes later, officers found footprints near the eastern hedge.
No person.
No vehicle.
Whoever had been there was gone.
Detective Ortiz returned.
“We’re tracing what we can.”
Audrey nodded.
“What about the storage unit?”
“Officers are heading there.”
Victoria sat silently.
Natalie had stopped crying.
Claire remained near the wall.
Audrey looked around.
Every person in the room possessed part of the truth.
Nobody possessed all of it.
That made the situation more dangerous.
Audrey turned to Victoria.
“Who worked with Dominic?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just told me this began before our wedding.”
“I knew about the financial plan.”
“What financial plan?”
Victoria hesitated.
Audrey’s patience disappeared.
“No more half-truths.”
Victoria looked ashamed.
“The original plan was to persuade you to combine your assets with Dominic’s.”
“And when I didn’t?”
“He became angry.”
Audrey remembered.
Dominic had called her refusal a sign she did not trust him.
He had sulked for weeks.
Eventually, Audrey gave him access to one checking account.
Enough to make him feel victorious.
Not enough to give him control.
“Who else knew?”
Victoria shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Audrey looked at Claire.
Claire hesitated.
“There was a man.”
Dominic had met him twice at her apartment.
Claire had never heard a name.
“He wore a wedding ring,” she said. “Gray hair. Maybe fifty.”
“What did they discuss?”
“Property.”
Audrey’s pulse quickened.
“What property?”
“Yours.”
Detective Reed took notes.
Claire continued.
“I heard Dominic say the house would be easier than the company.”
Audrey thought about the deed.
Her grandfather had structured ownership carefully.
Selling the property without her signature would be almost impossible.
Unless—
“Forgery,” Audrey whispered.
Victoria closed her eyes.
Audrey turned sharply.
“You know something.”
Victoria looked at her.
“Dominic practiced your signature.”
The room went silent.
Natalie whispered, “Oh my God.”
Audrey felt strangely calm.
“How long?”
“I saw papers last year.”
“And you said nothing?”
Victoria’s eyes filled with tears.
“I was protecting my son.”
“No.”
Audrey stepped closer.
“You were protecting yourself.”
Victoria looked down.
Audrey walked away.
She did not need an apology.
Not tonight.
Perhaps never.
At 11:43 p.m., Detective Reed received the call.
The storage unit had been found.
Inside were filing cabinets.
Computers.
Boxes.
Financial records.
Copies of Audrey’s signature.
And photographs.
Hundreds of photographs.
Some of Audrey.
Some of other women.
Reed’s expression became grim.
“This may be larger than your marriage.”
Audrey stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Another officer entered carrying a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was something found near the hedge.
A cigarette butt.
And a small metal object.
Audrey leaned closer.
A cuff link.
Silver.
Engraved with the initials R.H.
Victoria gasped.
Audrey turned.
“You recognize it?”
Victoria’s face had gone white.
“Yes.”
“Whose is it?”
Victoria did not answer immediately.
“Richard Hale.”
Audrey knew the name.
Everyone in their city did.
Richard Hale was Dominic’s godfather.
A respected financial adviser.
A man who had attended their wedding.
A man who had toasted Audrey and Dominic beneath the lights of the ballroom and called their marriage “a partnership built to last.”
Audrey remembered him hugging her.
Calling her family.
Offering to manage her investments.
She had declined.
Dominic had been furious.
Detective Reed asked, “Where can we find Hale?”
Victoria looked frightened.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“He built the system Dominic used.”
“What system?”
Victoria looked at Audrey.
“The companies.”
The forged invoices.
The transfers.
The hidden accounts.
Richard Hale had designed them.
Audrey’s phone vibrated again.
Everyone looked at it.
Unknown number.
A new message.
ASK VICTORIA WHAT HAPPENED TO DOMINIC’S FIRST FIANCÉE.
Audrey stopped breathing.
She looked at Victoria.
Victoria stared at the floor.
Audrey whispered, “First fiancée?”
Natalie began sobbing.
That answered the question before Victoria did.
Audrey moved toward her.
“Natalie?”
Natalie shook her head.
“I was seventeen.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“What was her name?”
Natalie looked up.
“Rebecca.”
Audrey had never heard that name.
Not once in seven years.
“Rebecca what?”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
Detective Reed typed the name into his phone.
A few seconds later, his expression changed.
Audrey knew before he spoke that he had found something.
“Rebecca Sloan disappeared eight years ago.”
Audrey felt the room tilt.
Eight years.
One year before Dominic met her.
“What happened to her?”
“Her vehicle was found near a lake.”
“Was she found?”
Reed shook his head.
“No.”
Audrey turned to Victoria.
“You knew.”
Victoria began crying.
Audrey’s voice hardened.
“You knew Dominic had a fiancée who disappeared, and you never told me?”
Victoria whispered, “He said she left him.”
“Her car was found beside a lake!”
“I believed my son.”
Audrey stepped back.
There it was again.
The sentence that had excused everything.
A mother believing her son.
A wife doubting herself.
A sister looking away.
A mistress accepting lies.
Every silence had protected Dominic.
Until tonight.
Detective Reed received another message.
He read it twice.
“What?” Audrey asked.
He looked at her.
“The officers searching the storage unit found a locked box.”
“And?”
“Inside it was Rebecca Sloan’s driver’s license.”
Nobody spoke.
Audrey felt every hair on her arms rise.
Dominic’s arrest was no longer simply about assault, theft, or fraud.
A woman had vanished.
Her identification had just been discovered among Dominic’s hidden possessions.
Audrey looked toward the covered windows.
Someone outside had known.
Someone wanted her to know.
The question was why.
Then the lights went out.
Victoria screamed.
Glass shattered somewhere downstairs.
Detective Ortiz shouted for everyone to stay down.
Audrey dropped behind the table.
In the darkness, footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Not police footsteps.
May you like
Someone was inside the house.
And whoever had entered was moving directly toward the dining room.
