Chapter 5 - THE HUSBAND WHO TOOK MORE
Lauren left the hospital without saying goodbye.
Thirty minutes later, she called me.
I almost didn’t answer.
Then I saw the fear in her face on the video request and accepted.
“Ben isn’t home.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“His clothes are gone.”
That did.
Lauren was standing in the middle of her perfect white kitchen.
Half the cabinets were still open from the move.
Boxes sat everywhere.
The dream house already looked less like a beginning and more like evidence.
“He took his passport,” she said.
Julian leaned closer.
“Ask her whether the financial documents are still there.”
I repeated the question.
Lauren turned the camera toward a small home office.
Drawers were open.
A file cabinet stood unlocked.
“Everything’s messed up.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Julian said loudly enough for her to hear.
Lauren stared into the phone.
“Why?”
“Because your husband may have used Miranda’s identity to commit financial fraud.”
Her face collapsed.
“No.”
I felt almost sorry for her.
Almost.
Then Lauren whispered:
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course there was.
“What?”
“Ben knew about your company before we were married.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“I talked about you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you sold MedAxis.”
“That was public.”
“And that Mom and Dad sometimes had access to family accounts.”
I stared at her.
“You told a man you were dating that our parents had access to my financial accounts?”
“I didn’t think—”
“No. You didn’t.”
She flinched.
Julian raised one hand.
“Ask when Ben first suggested buying the house.”
I did.
Lauren hesitated.
“Three months ago.”
“And when did North Pine form?”
Julian already knew.
“Eleven months ago.”
The silence that followed was ugly.
Ben had created the company long before Lauren bought the house.
Before the loan.
Before the moving boxes.
Before the excuse.
That meant the house was not the beginning.
It was simply the first thing we had noticed.
Julian opened his laptop.
“My team is tracing every transaction involving North Pine.”
“How long?”
“We already found one.”
He turned the screen toward me.
A transfer from North Pine to a logistics company called Red Creek Transport.
Fifty thousand dollars.
The name meant nothing to me.
Until Nurse Marisol entered with an update from the police officer handling my accident.
“They found the delivery truck.”
I looked at her.
“The one that hit me?”
She nodded.
“It belonged to Red Creek Transport.”
My heart stopped.
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Across the room, Julian slowly turned his laptop toward the door.
The same company that received money from my brother-in-law’s secret account owned the truck that nearly killed me.
