Chapter 1 - THE ENVELOPE MY WIFE LEFT BEHIND
I thought the worst thing Corinne could have left me was a divorce petition.
I was wrong.
The first page inside the thick ivory envelope wasn't a letter.
It was a photograph.
My wife lay in a hospital bed, pale and exhausted, holding our newborn son against her chest.
A breathing tube ran beneath her nose.
Her eyes were closed.
A machine stood beside the bed.
And beneath the photograph, in Corinne's handwriting, were seven words.
This is what you missed, Grant.
I stared.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
"What happened to her?"
Mrs. Pearl stood in the doorway.
"Read the documents."
I turned the page.
It was a hospital discharge summary dated twenty-three days earlier.
Corinne had suffered a severe postpartum hemorrhage.
Her blood pressure had dropped dangerously low.
She'd required emergency treatment and a blood transfusion.
For several hours, doctors had feared she might not survive.
My knees weakened.
I gripped the edge of my desk.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
Mrs. Pearl looked at me.
"She called you."
I shook my head.
"No."
"Eleven times."
"That's impossible."
"Then check your phone."
I pulled it out.
Scrolled through my call history.
Nothing.
Then I remembered.
Tessa had borrowed my phone that night.
She said hers was charging.
She'd been sitting beside me in the hotel suite when I'd fallen asleep.
My stomach turned.
I opened my deleted call history.
There they were.
Eleven missed calls.
All from Corinne.
Between 11:42 p.m. and 3:16 a.m.
My mouth went dry.
I remembered Tessa smiling the following morning.
"Your wife called once, but I told her you were exhausted."
Once.
She'd said once.
I looked back at the photograph.
Corinne's face.
Our tiny son.
The hospital machines.
And suddenly, the roses in my hand seemed obscene.
I dropped them into the wastebasket.
The next document was a copy of a bank transfer.
Seventy-five thousand dollars.
From our joint household account to an unfamiliar company called Vaughn Consulting Group.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Vaughn.
Tessa Vaughn.
I turned another page.
A second transfer.
Forty thousand.
Then twenty-five thousand.
Then ninety thousand.
Every transaction had been authorized using my business credentials.
But I hadn't approved them.
I stared at the totals.
Two hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
Gone.
Then I found Corinne's letter.
Grant,
By the time you read this, Owen and I will be somewhere safe.
I knew about Tessa long before you left for your little vacation.
I knew about the hotel rooms, the gifts, and the lies.
But those aren't the reasons I left.
My chest tightened.
I left because someone has been using your name to move money through our family accounts.
Someone has been watching Owen.
And three nights before you returned home, I discovered a document that made me realize our son might not be safe in the house we built.
I could barely breathe.
The final paragraph was underlined.
Do not call Tessa.
Do not contact your business partner, Victor Hale.
And whatever you do, don't let either of them know you've opened the envelope.
I looked toward Mrs. Pearl.
"What is this?"
Her expression was grave.
"There's one more page, Mr. Keaton."
I reached into the envelope.
A photograph slipped onto the desk.
It showed Tessa standing beside Victor Hale outside a medical clinic.
Between them stood a woman wearing a hospital uniform.
The woman was holding my newborn son.
The photograph had been taken while Corinne was recovering from childbirth.
May you like
And written across the bottom were four words that made my blood turn cold.
THEY ALREADY TRIED ONCE.
