Chapter 3 - The Dead Woman’s Signature
For ten minutes, neither Detective Mason nor I spoke.
Emily had been dead for six years.
Yet someone had accessed her trust using credentials that required identity verification.
“That’s impossible,” I finally said.
Mason shook his head.
“Not impossible. Just very bad.”
The withdrawal had been initiated from a private banking office three states away.
A woman had appeared in person.
She had provided identification under Emily Morgan’s name.
She had answered security questions correctly.
And according to bank staff, she appeared frightened.
“Do you have surveillance footage?”
“They’re sending it.”
My heart hammered.
“What if Emily isn’t dead?”
Mason’s eyes hardened.
“We identified her remains.”
“How certain?”
He didn’t answer quickly enough.
That was all I needed.
Three hours later, a federal investigator arrived with a laptop.
The hospital room lights were dimmed.
The footage began.
A woman wearing sunglasses and a gray scarf walked into the bank.
She looked older than Emily’s photograph.
Thinner.
Nervous.
She kept glancing toward the door.
Then she removed her sunglasses.
I gasped.
It wasn’t Emily.
I knew the woman.
Her name was Rebecca Hale.
She had been Ethan’s “business assistant” for nearly a year.
And she was the woman whose messages I had found on his phone the night I was pushed from the balcony.
My anger became clarity.
“The affair.”
Mason nodded slowly.
“Maybe it wasn’t an affair.”
Rebecca had been bait.
The messages had been planted where I would find them.
They wanted me angry.
They wanted me confronting Ethan.
They wanted me near that balcony.
The bank footage continued.
Rebecca signed documents.
Then she leaned toward the bank manager and whispered something.
There was no audio.
But investigators zoomed in on the paper she slid across the desk.
A handwritten note.
HELP ME.
Mason immediately called his team.
They traced Rebecca’s phone.
It had been turned off since yesterday.
Her apartment had been emptied.
Her car was abandoned near the interstate.
Then another detective entered carrying a clear evidence bag.
Inside was Rebecca’s phone.
“Where did you find that?”
“Your house,” he said.
I stared.
“Where?”
He swallowed.
“Inside the wall.”
The same wall that had hidden Emily’s evidence.
But the phone had been placed there recently.
Its final unsent message was addressed to me.
Claire, if you survive, don’t trust Ethan when he says his mother planned everything.
I felt my pulse jump.
There was one more line.
He’s afraid of someone else.
Before Mason could speak, another message appeared on the recovered phone.
Incoming.
No name.
Only a number.
May you like
The text contained six words.
Rebecca failed. Bring Claire to me.
