Chapter 3 - The Price of Her Silence
I stared at Selina's name on the transfer receipt until the letters stopped looking like a name and started looking like a verdict.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Flynn had cried beside my hospital bed.
He had begged me not to divorce him.
He had told me he would spend the rest of his life making things right.
Then he had transferred a quarter of a million dollars to the woman whose lie had started everything.
"Why would he pay her?"
Nathan's voice was hard.
Detective Alvarez did not answer.
Camille did.
"There are only a few possibilities."
She looked at me.
"None of them are good."
I picked up the receipt.
"He paid her to leave."
Camille nodded once.
"Maybe."
"Or to stay quiet."
"Maybe."
"Or because he still believes her."
That possibility hurt the most.
Alvarez gathered the photographs.
"Do not assume motive until we have records."
"He gave her money."
"Yes."
"After he found out she lied about me."
"We do not yet have proof he knows she lied."
I looked at her.
"He stabbed me because she said I pushed her."
"That proves he believed her then."
Alvarez slipped the transfer receipt back into the folder.
"It does not prove what he believes now."
Camille leaned toward me.
"And for the divorce, it does not matter."
I knew she was right.
Emotionally, it mattered anyway.
That afternoon, the court granted temporary financial restraints.
Neither Flynn nor I could move major marital assets without notice.
The judge also ordered preservation of all home security records and prohibited Flynn from entering my hospital floor unless invited.
It should have made me feel safer.
Instead, at 4:06 p.m., my room phone rang.
The caller ID displayed HOSPITAL INTERNAL.
I answered.
"Mrs. Vance?"
The woman's voice was unfamiliar.
"Yes."
"This is pharmacy services."
"What do you need?"
"We are confirming medication allergies before discharge planning."
I frowned.
Dr. Reed had not mentioned discharge.
"I am not being discharged."
There was a pause.
Then the line went dead.
I stared at the receiver.
A minute later, Dr. Reed walked in.
"Did pharmacy just call me?"
He stopped.
"No one should be calling you directly."
I told him what happened.
His expression changed immediately.
He picked up the bedside phone and called hospital security.
Within ten minutes, my room number was changed in the internal directory and all nonclinical calls were blocked.
Alvarez arrived twenty minutes after that.
"What exactly did she ask?"
"Medication allergies."
"Anything else?"
"No."
She looked at Dr. Reed.
"Could that information be useful to hurt her?"
"Any medical information can be useful if the wrong person has enough of it."
Nathan's face darkened.
"So now someone is calling the hospital pretending to be pharmacy?"
Alvarez held up a hand.
"We do not know who called."
"You keep saying that."
"Because facts matter."
Nathan stepped closer.
"My sister was almost killed."
"Which is exactly why I am not going to build a case on guesses."
They stared at each other.
Then I spoke.
"Find the call."
Alvarez looked at me.
"We will."
That evening, I finally opened Flynn's email.
Camille sat beside me while I read it.
Mabel,
I know there are no words large enough for what I did.
I know saying I am sorry is insulting.
I know you hate me.
You should.
But please believe one thing.
I did not know about the babies.
I would give everything I own to change that day.
Selina told me you attacked her outside the Ashford Club after lunch.
She showed me messages from a number saved under your name.
She showed me a photograph of you near the club entrance.
I believed her.
That does not excuse me.
Nothing excuses me.
I am trying to understand how I became someone capable of doing what I did.
I sent Selina money because I told her to leave Chicago until the police finish their investigation.
She said she had nowhere to go and no access to her accounts because they were tied up in a business dispute.
I wanted her gone.
I did not pay for her silence.
I did not know she had access to our security system.
I am investigating that now.
Please let me see you once.
Not as your husband.
As the man who owes you the truth.
Flynn.
I read the email twice.
Camille read it once.
"Do not respond."
"He says he did not know she had access."
"He also says he sent her two hundred fifty thousand dollars because she needed travel money."
"That is absurd."
"Yes."
"But why would he lie about the password?"
"Because lying has worked for him before."
I looked at the line again.
I did not know she had access to our security system.
"Can he create a user account without knowing?"
"Ask the detective."
Alvarez called back later with an answer.
The security profile had been created through Flynn's administrator credentials, but those credentials could have been used by someone with access to his corporate laptop.
That did not clear him.
It did create another possibility.
Selina had been near his office often enough to use it.
The next morning, Alvarez brought me screenshots of the messages Selina had shown Flynn.
They appeared to come from my number.
Stay away from my husband.
You had your chance.
If I see you near him again, you will regret it.
One message had been sent at 1:22 p.m. on the day of the stabbing.
I was home at 1:22.
My phone had been beside me while I answered emails from an old colleague.
"Can texts be spoofed?"
"Yes."
"Can you prove these were?"
"We are trying."
There was that phrase again.
I looked at the photograph Selina had shown Flynn.
It was me outside the Ashford Club.
The date stamp said that afternoon.
But something was wrong.
I zoomed in.
I was wearing a navy trench coat.
I owned that coat.
I had worn it hundreds of times.
But the photograph had not been taken that day.
"This is old."
Alvarez leaned closer.
"How do you know?"
I pointed to my left hand.
"My wedding ring."
"You were still married."
"Look closer."
She did.
The ring in the photograph was my original engagement setting.
I had reset the stone eighteen months earlier after the prongs loosened.
The new setting had two small side diamonds.
The photograph showed none.
Alvarez's eyes sharpened.
"You are sure?"
"Absolutely."
She called a forensic technician from the hallway.
By noon, they had confirmed the image metadata had been stripped.
But the photograph itself contained a reflection in the club's brass door.
In that reflection was a poster advertising a charity auction.
Alvarez found the archived event calendar.
The auction had taken place twenty months earlier.
Selina had shown Flynn a twenty-month-old photograph and claimed it had been taken the day she accused me.
When Alvarez told me, something inside me shifted.
For the first time, Selina's story was not merely cruel.
It was constructed.
Deliberate.
Planned.
"She prepared this."
"It appears that way."
"Before she came to my house."
"Yes."
"Then the scratch was probably planned too."
Alvarez's face gave nothing away.
"We are looking at medical records and surveillance near the Ashford Club."
"There was no attack."
"I believe the evidence will answer that."
I hated her restraint, but I trusted it more than Flynn's certainty.
That afternoon, Camille brought the first draft of the divorce petition.
Reading the words irretrievable breakdown of marriage felt almost laughably small.
There was nothing irretrievable about a marriage after two stab wounds and two lost children.
It was already gone.
Camille turned to the section requesting exclusive possession of the residence.
"Do you want the house?"
I thought about the rug.
The apple.
The knife.
Selina's smile.
"No."
"Then why request it?"
"Because I want access to my things before anyone can remove them."
Camille nodded.
"Good answer."
The court scheduled a temporary hearing for the following week.
Flynn's attorneys objected to nearly every request.
They argued I had substantial separate assets and did not need access to joint funds.
They argued the residence was necessary for Flynn's security because of his public profile.
They argued my demand for digital preservation was overly broad.
Camille read their filing beside my hospital bed and smiled without humor.
"He says he wants forgiveness while his lawyers are fighting to keep you out of your own house."
I looked at the signature page.
Flynn had verified the filing under oath.
"He signed this."
"Yes."
I felt something inside me become permanently colder.
"Then he can stop sending me apologies."
That night, Detective Alvarez called at 11:16.
"We identified the hospital call."
I sat up too quickly and pain shot through my abdomen.
"Who was it?"
"The call was routed through an internet service."
"So you do not know."
"We know where the account was created."
I held my breath.
"A laptop connected to the Wi-Fi at Vance Corporate Residences."
Unit 1704.
Selina's apartment.
"Arrest her."
"Not yet."
Anger flared through me.
"She called my hospital pretending to be pharmacy."
"We can prove the account used that network."
"What more do you need?"
"To prove who was behind the keyboard."
I closed my eyes.
"She is going to do something else."
Alvarez was quiet.
"That is why I am telling you to remain on the protected floor."
I looked toward the dark window.
"Detective, why would she care about my medication allergies?"
There was a pause.
"I asked Dr. Reed the same thing."
"And?"
"He said one of the medications used during your surgery caused a mild reaction."
I remembered nurses discussing a rash while I was half-conscious.
"So?"
"That reaction was not public information."
"Who could see it?"
"Hospital staff."
"And Flynn?"
"Your husband was given a surgical update while you were unconscious."
My grip tightened around the phone.
"Did he tell Selina?"
"We do not know."
The next morning, I found out something worse.
Nathan arrived carrying coffee and a printed article from a financial gossip site.
The headline was enormous.
VANCE CEO'S WIFE HOSPITALIZED AFTER DOMESTIC ALTERCATION INVOLVING JEALOUSY DISPUTE.
I read the first paragraph.
Sources close to Selina Cole claimed I had been obsessed with Flynn's longtime friendship with her and had confronted her repeatedly.
The article said Flynn had acted during a chaotic struggle.
It described Selina as shaken and injured.
It described me as emotionally unstable after marital tension.
I felt my pulse begin to climb.
Nathan reached for the paper.
"Do not read the comments."
I kept reading.
Then I saw the sentence that made me stop breathing.
According to a source familiar with the family, Mrs. Vance had recently become distressed over unsuccessful attempts to conceive.
My hands began to shake.
The twins were not mentioned.
The article had turned the private grief of my dead children into evidence that I was unstable because I could not get pregnant.
Someone had fed the press a story designed to humiliate me without revealing the truth.
Camille arrived twenty minutes later.
She read the article once.
"This did not come from Flynn's criminal lawyer."
"How do you know?"
"Because a competent lawyer would never authorize this while police are investigating."
"Then Selina."
"Probably."
My phone buzzed.
A message from the unknown number appeared.
You should have taken the flowers.
A second message followed.
Now everyone gets to hear your version of the truth.
I showed Camille.
Her face hardened.
Then a third message appeared.
And one day, Flynn will understand that you were never the woman he wanted.
I stared at the screen.
For the first time, I did not feel wounded by Selina's words.
I felt clarity.
She wanted me angry.
She wanted me reckless.
She wanted me to respond.
So I did something she did not expect.
I handed the phone to Detective Alvarez.
And said nothing.
Two hours later, Alvarez called me with the first piece of evidence that made even her controlled voice sound different.
"Mrs. Vance, we found the store where Selina's bandage was purchased."
"What bandage?"
"The small one she had over the scratch when she first spoke to officers."
I sat very still.
"When did she buy it?"
"She did not."
"Then who did?"
"Her assistant did."
I waited.
Alvarez continued.
"At 10:12 that morning."
May you like
Six hours before Selina claimed I scratched her.
