Chapter 2 - The Woman With a Password
I thought I had misheard Detective Alvarez.
Selina did not live in my house.
Selina had never been family.
Selina had no reason to have security credentials to the home where Flynn and I slept.
Yet the detective had just told me she could access the cameras.
"Why would Selina have a password to my security system?"
Alvarez did not answer immediately.
That made the truth feel worse before I even knew it.
"The access profile was created eleven months ago."
"By whom?"
"The administrator account was Mr. Vance's."
My fingers went numb.
"Flynn gave her access."
"That is what the records suggest."
I stared at the closed hospital door.
Eleven months.
I remembered that month immediately.
Flynn had told me there had been threats against Vance Global executives after a hostile acquisition.
He had changed the gate code.
He had added biometric locks to his office.
He had insisted that I stop giving the household staff temporary access without notifying security.
Apparently the rules had applied to everyone except Selina.
"Did she use the account that day?"
Alvarez pulled a printed log from her folder.
"That is the problem."
I looked up.
"The deletion request came through an authenticated session, but the server only stored the device token, not the user name, because your security team had disabled full audit logging."
"Why would they disable it?"
"Your husband says for privacy."
I almost smiled at the absurdity.
Flynn had spent millions designing systems to record everything around him, then disabled the one feature that could tell us who had erased evidence.
Or perhaps that had been the point.
"Can you recover the video?"
"We are trying."
"Trying is not the same as yes."
"No."
Alvarez did not soften the answer.
"It is not."
Dr. Reed returned a few minutes later and ended the interview.
He waited until Alvarez left before checking the drainage line near my abdomen.
His movements were careful and efficient.
"Pain level?"
"Six."
"That means eight."
"Seven."
"Better."
I watched him adjust the medication pump.
"Did you know about the camera?"
He glanced at me.
"No."
"You heard us."
"Hospitals have thin doors."
"You also heard that my husband gave Selina access to my home."
He paused.
"Yes."
"Say what you are thinking."
Dr. Reed looked uncomfortable.
"I am your physician, not your attorney."
"I did not ask for legal advice."
He sighed.
"I think you should not be alone when you leave this hospital."
That answer frightened me more than anger would have.
"You think Flynn will hurt me again?"
"I think someone already tried very hard to make sure there would be no witness left to explain what happened."
I looked at him.
He nodded toward my chart.
"Your blood pressure is rising."
"Then stop saying terrifying things."
"I would rather frighten you than bury you."
The bluntness of it silenced me.
That evening, a hospital social worker helped move me to a private room under a restricted visitor list.
Flynn was not allowed inside without my written permission.
Neither was Selina.
At 8:14 p.m., my phone began vibrating on the tray.
Flynn.
I let it ring.
He called again.
Then again.
On the fourth call, I blocked him.
Thirty seconds later, a text arrived from an unknown number.
Please do not do this to him while he is grieving.
I read the sentence twice.
Then a second message arrived.
Flynn loved those babies too.
My skin went cold.
Only a small number of people knew about the twins.
Dr. Reed.
The surgical team.
Flynn.
Detective Alvarez.
And me.
I took a screenshot and sent it to Alvarez.
She called within one minute.
"Do not respond."
"You think it is Selina?"
"I think I want the number preserved before anyone knows we are looking at it."
"How did she find out about the twins?"
"That is what I would like to know."
I looked toward the door.
"Flynn could have told her."
There was a short silence.
"Yes."
That possibility hurt in a different way.
Not because I expected loyalty from him anymore.
Because I had watched him collapse when Dr. Reed revealed the pregnancy.
I had believed, for one moment, that his grief belonged to us.
Maybe he had walked out of my room and called Selina before he had even reached the elevator.
"Detective, can you find out if he contacted her?"
"We are working on warrants."
"That means you cannot tell me."
"It means I will tell you what I can when I can."
I hated that answer.
I hated needing the police to explain my own husband to me.
The next morning, my older brother, Nathan, arrived from Boston.
Nathan and I had never been emotionally graceful siblings.
We argued at Thanksgiving.
We forgot birthdays.
We could go six weeks without speaking and then send each other stock charts at midnight.
But when he walked into my hospital room and saw the bandages, his face went rigid.
"Where is he?"
"Not here."
"Good."
He placed his overnight bag on the chair.
"Because I am trying very hard not to turn this into a second crime scene."
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Then he saw the ultrasound printout on the tray.
His expression changed.
"Mabel."
I looked away.
Nathan sat down beside me.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then he took my hand.
"I am sorry."
That was enough to break something open.
I cried for the first time since waking up.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
I simply lay there while tears slid into my hair and Nathan held my hand without trying to make the grief smaller.
When it passed, he handed me a tissue.
"Now tell me everything."
I did.
I told him about Selina's scratch.
The knife.
Flynn's jacket around her shoulders.
The camera.
The deleted footage.
The security access.
The anonymous message about the twins.
Nathan listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he stood and walked to the window.
"You need a lawyer."
"I know."
"Not Flynn's lawyers."
"Obviously."
"And not one of the firms that wants Vance Global business."
He turned toward me.
"You need someone who hates being intimidated more than they like being invited to charity galas."
"Do you know someone?"
"Yes."
An hour later, attorney Camille Hart entered my room wearing a gray suit and carrying no visible sympathy.
I liked her immediately.
She was fifty-two, silver streaks in her dark hair, and had represented executives in some of the ugliest divorces in Chicago.
She sat down, opened a yellow legal pad, and asked one question.
"Do you want to save your marriage?"
"No."
"Do you want revenge?"
I hesitated.
"I want the truth."
"That was not my question."
I looked at her.
"I want him to face what he did."
She nodded.
"Good."
"Why is that good?"
"Because people who pretend they want peace while secretly wanting blood make terrible decisions."
Nathan coughed to hide a laugh.
Camille ignored him.
"You signed a prenuptial agreement?"
"Yes."
"Who drafted it?"
"Vance family counsel."
"Then assume it was written to protect him."
"I had my own lawyer review it."
"Better."
She tapped her pen.
"Any marital assets held jointly?"
"The house."
"Investments?"
"Several."
"Your own accounts?"
"Yes."
"Access?"
I reached for my phone.
"I have not checked."
Camille stopped my hand.
"Do not use the hospital network."
That made Nathan straighten.
"Why?"
"Because if someone has been inside her home security system, I am not assuming her devices are clean."
She pulled a sealed phone from her bag.
"Use this."
I stared at her.
"You brought me a new phone?"
"Your brother told me enough to make me cautious."
I logged into my primary bank through the new device.
The password worked.
My personal investment account was intact.
Then I opened the joint household account.
My access had been suspended.
I tried again.
Account credentials invalid.
Camille's face went still.
"When was the last time you used it?"
"Three days before the stabbing."
"Call the bank."
I did.
After ten minutes of verification, the representative returned with an answer.
"Mrs. Vance, online access for your user profile was removed yesterday at 6:42 p.m."
I looked at Camille.
"By whom?"
The representative paused.
"The request came from the primary account holder."
Flynn.
Less than twelve hours after learning our twins were dead, my husband had removed me from our joint finances.
Nathan swore under his breath.
Camille did not react.
"Ask about transfers."
I did.
The representative hesitated again.
"There was a transfer yesterday afternoon."
"How much?"
"Two hundred fifty thousand dollars."
My heart stumbled.
"To where?"
"I cannot disclose the recipient account without authorization from the primary holder."
Camille held out her hand for the phone.
"You will disclose it when served."
She ended the call and began writing.
"We file today."
"For divorce?"
"For divorce, emergency financial restraints, exclusive access to the residence, and preservation of electronic evidence."
Her pen moved faster.
"We also notify Vance Global legal that destruction of records related to the household security system may constitute spoliation."
Nathan leaned against the wall.
"Will that scare Flynn?"
Camille looked up.
"I am not interested in scaring him."
She gave me a sharp little smile.
"I am interested in making every door he tries to close become evidence that he tried to close it."
For the first time since waking up, I felt something other than grief.
It was not hope.
It was structure.
A plan.
At noon, Camille's office filed the emergency motions.
At 12:37, Flynn's chief of staff called Nathan.
At 12:44, Vance Global's general counsel called Camille.
At 1:03, Flynn tried to enter my floor and was turned away by hospital security.
At 1:18, he sent an email with the subject line PLEASE READ.
Camille told me not to open it.
At 2:10, Detective Alvarez returned.
She carried a small evidence bag.
Inside was a black key card.
"We found this in the pocket of the suit jacket Mr. Vance left at the scene."
I recognized the embossed silver letters immediately.
VC RESIDENCES.
Vance Corporate Residences.
The company maintained luxury apartments for visiting executives.
"Whose apartment?"
Alvarez watched me.
"Unit 1704."
I knew that number too.
Flynn had once told me it was reserved for overseas board members.
"Who is staying there?"
Alvarez placed a photograph beside the key card.
It showed Selina entering the building at 11:38 p.m. two nights before the stabbing.
She was not alone.
Flynn was walking beside her.
His hand rested on the small of her back.
I stared at the photograph until the edges blurred.
"How long?"
"We do not know yet."
"He told me he was in New York that night."
"His corporate flight log says the trip was canceled."
I looked at Nathan.
He looked ready to break something.
Camille simply took a slow breath.
Then Alvarez placed one more page on the tray.
"There is something else."
It was the transfer receipt from our joint account.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Recipient: S. Cole Consulting LLC.
Selina.
I looked at the timestamp.
5:51 p.m.
The day Flynn learned I was pregnant with twins.
May you like
The transfer had been made less than three hours after he left my hospital room.
