Chapter 2 - MY HUSBAND’S SECOND LIFE
For several seconds, I could not move.
Marcus pushed the evidence bag toward me.
“Rachel, if this belongs to you—”
“It doesn’t.”
“But your name is on it.”
“I’ve never seen it before.”
My voice sounded distant.
Daniel had been gone eighteen months.
Cancer had taken him slowly.
First his strength.
Then his appetite.
Then his ability to walk upstairs without stopping.
I had been beside him through all of it.
I thought I knew every important part of his life.
Apparently, I had been wrong.
Marcus unplugged the security computer from the hotel network.
“I don’t want this connected to anything internal.”
“You think management is involved?”
“I think somebody tried very hard to make you look like a thief.”
He inserted the USB into an old offline laptop.
A password screen appeared.
One hint.
TWINS.
I stared at it.
Daniel always called our daughters Peanut and Bean.
Their actual names were Lily and Grace.
I typed:
LILYGRACE
Wrong.
PEANUTBEAN
Wrong.
Then I remembered the day they were born.
Daniel had cried harder than I did.
After holding them both, he whispered:
“My two miracles.”
I typed:
TWOMIRACLES
The drive opened.
There were six folders.
CARTER FOUNDATION.
HARBOR HEALTH.
INSURANCE.
VIDEOS.
RACHEL.
LAST RESORT.
Marcus looked at me.
“Carter?”
My stomach tightened.
Vanessa Carter.
I opened the folder bearing her name.
Hundreds of scanned documents filled the screen.
Invoices.
Bank transfers.
Patient lists.
Charity fundraising reports.
Daniel had worked in corporate accounting before his diagnosis.
Not for the Carters.
At least, that was what I believed.
I opened one document.
At the top was a logo.
CARTER FAMILY MEDICAL RELIEF FOUNDATION.
Below it:
External Audit Consultant — Daniel Bennett.
I stopped breathing.
“Daniel worked for them.”
Marcus frowned.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
He was supposed to be freelancing from home before he got sick.
He told me the work came from several small companies.
I clicked another file.
A payment ledger.
Millions of dollars had supposedly been distributed to cancer patients unable to afford treatment.
Beside dozens of names was the word PAID.
But several rows had been highlighted in red.
One name caught my attention.
Angela Bennett.
Daniel’s mother.
My mother-in-law had died years before I met him.
“What is this?”
Marcus leaned closer.
The foundation claimed to have paid $47,000 toward Angela Bennett’s cancer treatment.
Three years after she died.
I scrolled.
More dead patients.
More payments.
More impossible dates.
Marcus whispered:
“Someone was stealing charity money.”
Then I noticed a video file.
The date was four months before Daniel’s diagnosis.
I clicked play.
My husband appeared on screen.
He was sitting inside his car.
Healthy.
Nervous.
Looking over his shoulder.
Then he looked directly into the camera.
“Rachel, if you’re watching this, something went wrong.”
I covered my mouth.
Daniel continued.
“I found out where the Carter Foundation money is actually going.”
He paused.
“And Vanessa knows I found it.”
Marcus and I looked at each other.
Then Daniel said:
“But Vanessa isn’t the person I’m afraid of.”
The video froze.
A second later, another file appeared beneath it.
May you like
Its name was:
THE MAN WHO CAN GET INTO OUR HOUSE.
