Chapter 3 - THE FEVER THAT NEVER EXISTED
Kelsey Ward’s temperature was 98.4 when Ronan returned to her apartment at noon.
He knew because he made her take it in front of him.
She glared at the thermometer.
“Medicine works.”
“You sent me a picture showing 103.1.”
“I took ibuprofen.”
“That was less than ten hours ago.”
“Ronan, what is this?”
He held out his hand.
“My laptop.”
Kelsey’s face barely changed.
That frightened him.
“It’s in your bag.”
“Someone accessed Ellison House from it at 2:51.”
She crossed her arms.
“You think I did?”
“I didn’t.”
“So naturally it must be the mistress.”
The word hit him.
He had spent eighteen months insisting she was not that.
Now Kelsey used it herself.
Ronan stared.
“Did you access my computer?”
“No.”
“Did Evan?”
Her eyes flickered.
Only once.
Enough.
Ronan saw it.
“Why would Evan be here?”
“He wasn’t.”
“Kelsey.”
“You sound like Mara.”
“I should have listened to Mara.”
That landed.
Kelsey’s face hardened.
“Oh, please. Your wife spent years making you feel guilty for breathing without permission.”
Ronan almost laughed.
That was what Kelsey had told him for months.
Mara doesn’t appreciate you.
Mara doesn’t understand how much pressure you’re under.
Mara makes everything personal.
Every sentence had felt flattering because Ronan wanted to believe he was the exhausted hero of his own life.
Now he remembered Mara vomiting in an emergency-room basin while he checked his watch because Kelsey needed him at a sponsor dinner.
The memory made him sick.
“Where did the thermometer photograph come from?”
Kelsey looked away.
His stomach dropped.
“Kelsey.”
“It was an old picture.”
“How old?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
She threw her hands up.
“I felt awful. I wanted you here.”
“You lied.”
“You were coming anyway.”
“No.”
Ronan looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“I chose to come because I thought you needed help.”
“You always come.”
There was something triumphant in the way she said it.
And suddenly he heard Mara’s words.
She works for Ellison House.
She does not work for our marriage.
Ronan’s phone buzzed.
Naomi Brooks.
He answered.
“Mr. Ellison, you are required to preserve all personal and business communications with Ms. Ward.”
“Why?”
“The board audit identified additional irregularities.”
“What kind?”
“Potential wire fraud.”
Kelsey went still.
Ronan watched her.
Naomi continued.
“We also discovered a digital authorization bearing Mara’s signature.”
“When?”
“2:58 this morning.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t Mara?”
“We don’t believe so.”
“What did it authorize?”
Naomi paused.
“Transfer of intellectual-property licensing rights.”
Ronan’s chest tightened.
“To who?”
“Ward Strategic Consulting.”
He looked directly at Kelsey.
She had stopped pretending to be angry.
Now she looked afraid.
Ronan whispered, “You tried to steal the company’s software.”
Kelsey said nothing.
His phone buzzed again.
A security analyst had located the original thermometer image.
It was from an urgent-care blog posted four years earlier.
May you like
Kelsey had downloaded it at 2:31 A.M.
Twelve minutes before Ronan walked out on his wife.
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