Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WITH MY HUSBAND'S MONEY
Julianne called me at 2:13 in the morning.
I almost did not answer.
I had moved into a furnished apartment overlooking the river because I could not sleep in the mansion without hearing Lily's footsteps in every hallway.
Her stuffed rabbit sat on the chair beside my bed.
My phone vibrated against the nightstand.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
I stared at it until the fourth ring.
Then I answered.
"Hello?"
Julianne was crying.
"Maya, please don't hang up."
I sat upright.
"How did you get this number?"
"David gave it to me months ago."
Of course he had.
He had probably labeled me as a warning.
"What do you want?"
"I think someone is in my apartment."
I looked toward the dark windows.
"Call the police."
"I did."
"Then why are you calling me?"
Her breathing was ragged.
"Because they took the files."
I became fully awake.
"What files?"
"David's."
"What files, Julianne?"
"The ones he made me keep."
A cold pressure spread through my chest.
"Where are you?"
"In the lobby."
"Stay there."
"Maya—"
"Do not go back upstairs."
I ended the call and dialed Agent Hale.
He answered on the second ring.
Thirty-eight minutes later, I stood across the street from Julianne's high-rise while police lights flashed against the glass.
Hale arrived in an unmarked sedan.
He was wearing jeans, a dark coat, and the expression of a man who had expected trouble but not this specific kind.
"You should have stayed home," he said.
"You already know I wasn't going to."
He did not argue.
Julianne sat inside the lobby wrapped in a gray blanket.
Without the expensive clothes and makeup, she looked twenty-five.
Actually twenty-five.
Young enough to believe a married millionaire could rescue her from an ordinary life without asking what he wanted in return.
She looked up when I entered.
"They knew exactly where to look."
Hale crouched near her chair.
"Who knew?"
"I don't know."
"What was taken?"
"A black case."
"What was in it?"
She looked at me.
"Copies of contracts."
"What contracts?"
"I didn't read all of them."
Hale's voice sharpened.
"Start with the ones you did read."
Julianne rubbed at a smear of mascara beneath one eye.
"David created Mercer Health Strategy last year."
I felt no surprise.
Some part of me had already known.
"In your name?" Hale asked.
"Yes."
"With your permission?"
She hesitated.
"He said it was a wellness consulting company."
"Did you sign formation documents?"
"Some."
"Did you receive income?"
"He paid my rent."
"Anything else?"
Her silence lengthened.
"Julianne," I said.
She looked at me.
"If you lie now, you are choosing him again."
Her chin trembled.
"He gave me three hundred thousand dollars."
Hale did not react.
I did.
Not because of the amount.
Because Lily's foundation had paid families ten thousand dollars at a time to help with medical bills.
Three hundred thousand dollars could have supported thirty families.
David gave it to his mistress.
Julianne began speaking faster.
"I didn't know where it came from."
"Did you ask?"
"He said it was a consulting bonus."
"For what consulting?"
"I introduced him to people."
"What people?"
"Clients from the gym."
"You received three hundred thousand dollars for introductions?"
She looked away.
"I knew it was generous."
"Generous."
The word tasted bitter.
"Maya," Hale warned gently.
I stepped back.
This was not an interrogation I was supposed to control.
But Julianne kept talking to me, not him.
"The black case had copies of wire confirmations, company papers, and something David called protection documents."
"Protection from what?"
"He never said."
Hale asked, "Where did the case come from?"
"He gave it to me the day before we flew to the Bahamas."
"Why?"
"He said if anything happened while he was away, I should keep it somewhere safe."
"Did he give you instructions?"
She nodded.
"If Maya calls, don't answer."
My skin went cold.
"What else?"
"If Richard calls, tell David immediately."
"Anything else?"
Julianne's eyes filled again.
"If a man named Peter Sloan contacts me, give him the black case."
Hale stood so abruptly that Julianne recoiled.
"Peter Sloan?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
He pulled out his phone and stepped away.
I watched his face while he made the call.
Whatever Peter Sloan meant to the investigation, it mattered.
When Hale returned, his jaw was tight.
"Peter Sloan is Arthur Vance's former attorney."
Julianne stared at him.
"The missing one?"
Hale looked at me.
"How do you know he's missing?"
Julianne's face drained.
She realized her mistake immediately.
I did too.
No one had told her that.
Hale moved closer.
"Ms."
"Mercer, who told you Peter Sloan was missing?"
She stammered.
"David."
"When?"
"Months ago."
"Exactly when?"
"I don't remember."
"Try."
She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Last winter."
"What did he say?"
"That his father's old lawyer disappeared after stealing confidential records."
"Did he say he reported the theft?"
"I don't know."
Hale's phone rang.
He answered, listened for twenty seconds, then looked toward the elevators.
"The apartment was not randomly searched."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"No electronics were taken."
"No jewelry."
"No cash."
Julianne gripped the blanket.
"Just the black case."
"Yes."
She began to cry again.
"David is in custody."
Hale nodded.
"Which means either he told someone where it was before he was arrested, or someone else already knew."
I thought of Richard Cole.
"The CFO."
Hale's expression told me he was thinking the same thing.
Richard had not vanished on medical leave.
He had disappeared.
And now a case of evidence had disappeared too.
Julianne suddenly grabbed my wrist.
I almost pulled away.
"There was one thing I didn't put in the case."
Hale leaned forward.
"What?"
She released me and reached beneath the gray blanket.
For one insane second, I thought she was reaching for a weapon.
Instead, she pulled a tiny memory card from the lining of her pajama pocket.
"I found this in David's second phone case after he threw the phone overboard."
Hale stared at it.
"Why didn't you tell us yesterday?"
"Because I was scared."
"And you're not scared now?"
She looked toward the elevators.
"Now I'm more scared of whoever came into my apartment."
Hale took an evidence envelope from his coat.
"Do not touch the card again."
Julianne dropped it inside.
I watched him seal the envelope.
"What's on it?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"I don't know."
"You never opened it?"
"I tried."
"It was encrypted."
Hale wrote the time across the seal.
Then Julianne said, "There was writing on the phone case."
"What writing?"
"Three letters and a number."
"What letters?"
She thought for a moment.
"L-A-V."
My heart stuttered.
Lily Anne Vance.
"And the number?"
"Seven."
LAV7.
Lily's initials and her age.
A password hint.
A file label.
A code.
Something David had carried onto the yacht while our seven-year-old daughter died.
Hale looked at me.
"Did Lily use those initials for anything?"
My mind went backward.
School folders.
Library cards.
Her art projects.
Then I remembered.
"Her tablet."
"What about it?"
"David set up a family backup account when she got it for Christmas."
Hale's eyes sharpened.
"Do you still have the tablet?"
I stood.
"Yes."
"Where?"
"In a box at my sister's house."
He was already reaching for his phone.
But another thought hit me.
"No."
Hale paused.
"What?"
"Not the tablet."
I saw Lily sitting cross-legged on the rug, laughing while she recorded a video of David pretending to snore.
I saw the automatic upload icon spin in the corner.
I saw David later taking the tablet from her because she had filmed something in his office.
At the time, he said she was interrupting a call.
Lily had pouted for ten minutes.
"The backup account," I whispered.
"What about it?"
"Lily's tablet automatically uploaded videos."
Hale went still.
"Including videos she recorded around the house?"
"Yes."
I looked at the sealed memory card in his hand.
"If LAV7 points to that account, David may not have been hiding documents on the card."
"He may have been hiding access credentials."
I nodded.
Hale asked the question neither of us wanted to say aloud.
"Do you remember what Lily filmed in his office?"
I closed my eyes.
The memory came back in pieces.
David shouting.
A second man's voice.
Lily running out of the study with her tablet clutched to her chest.
Arthur Vance's name.
The word transfer.
And one sentence I had dismissed at the time as business anger.
"If Maya sees that signature, this family is over."
I opened my eyes.
"I think Lily recorded David talking about the forged documents."
Hale looked down at the evidence envelope.
May you like
And suddenly the seven-year-old girl David had ignored might have left behind the one piece of evidence he had been trying to destroy for months.
