Chapter 4 - The Woman Before Me
Her name was Alison Price.
She had dated Derek for four years before I met him.
He told me she cheated and moved overseas.
Police records told another story.
Alison reported being strangled during an argument.
She withdrew the complaint two days later.
Three months afterward, her car was found near Lake Michigan.
Her body was never recovered.
Derek claimed he had no contact with her.
Phone records now showed seventeen calls between them during the week she vanished.
Detective Cruz reopened the case.
I felt sick.
The violet handprint around my throat suddenly seemed like part of a longer pattern.
“Do you believe he killed her?”
“We do not know.”
“But we know he lied.”
Rachel searched Sentinel’s old financial records.
A payment of $90,000 had gone to a private security contractor days after Alison disappeared.
The contractor was owned by Derek’s college friend, Mason Cole.
Mason now served as Sentinel’s operations director.
He had access to company vehicles, surveillance systems, and offshore accounts.
The board suspended him immediately.
Derek reacted through his attorney.
He accused me of stealing company control while mentally impaired.
He requested an emergency competency hearing.
Rachel smiled when she read the filing.
“He is using the same strategy he used against Alison.”
A hospital psychiatrist evaluated me.
I was exhausted.
In pain.
Traumatized.
And fully competent.
The judge rejected Derek’s request.
Then Nurse Rosa found a man wearing hospital maintenance clothes near my room.
He ran when security approached.
Police caught him in the parking garage.
It was Mason.
He carried a syringe containing a powerful sedative.
He claimed he intended only to help me sleep.
No one believed him.
Mason was arrested for attempted evidence tampering and unlawful possession of medication.
Under questioning, he demanded a deal.
He offered information about Alison.
Derek’s attorney attempted to stop him.
It was too late.
Mason admitted helping Derek clean blood from Alison’s apartment.
He claimed she was still alive when he left.
He also revealed a storage unit rented under a false name.
Police searched it that night.
Inside were Alison’s suitcase, photographs, and several of my missing financial files.
Then investigators found a locked metal trunk.
Derek had paid the unit fees for nine years.
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Inside the trunk was a silver necklace.
Alison wore the same necklace in her missing-person photograph.
