Chapter 6 - The Policy
For several seconds, I could hear nothing except the hum of the air conditioning.
Ten million dollars.
My name.
My life.
Marcus as beneficiary.
I looked at him.
“You told her I was sick?”
Marcus stared at Lauren.
“You had no right to come here.”
She laughed bitterly.
“No right?”
Noah squeezed her hand.
Lauren immediately softened and crouched beside him.
“Sweetheart, can you sit with the nice lady outside for a minute?”
My assistant took Noah into the adjacent lounge.
Marcus watched his son leave.
Then Lauren turned back into a woman I barely recognized from a minute earlier.
Pure fury.
“You told me Ximena had a degenerative heart condition.”
Marcus shook his head.
“I explained this.”
“You told me she would probably be gone within a few years.”
My stomach turned.
Arthur whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Lauren looked at me.
“I thought your marriage was basically over.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“When did he tell you this?”
“When I got pregnant.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“Lauren, stop.”
“No.”
She pointed at him.
“You told me you stayed with Ximena because she needed medical coverage and because leaving could destabilize her condition.”
I stared at him.
It was so absurd that it became terrifying.
Marcus knew I was healthy.
He attended my annual physical once because we went to lunch afterward.
He knew.
I looked at the policy again.
“How was this issued without my knowledge?”
My attorney, David, picked it up.
“If the signature was forged, we’ll find out.”
Marcus spoke quickly.
“It was part of estate planning.”
I looked at him.
“Without telling me?”
“We discussed insurance.”
“We discussed a standard mutual policy.”
“You signed documents.”
“Not this.”
Lauren opened her purse again.
“I found more.”
Marcus rushed toward her.
Arthur intercepted him.
“Sit down.”
Marcus shouted, “Stay out of this!”
Arthur’s face changed.
“You have made your wife believe another woman was dying while secretly insuring that woman’s life for ten million dollars.”
Marcus stopped.
Arthur’s voice dropped.
“You will sit down.”
Marcus sat.
Lauren placed photographs on my desk.
Marcus and Noah at a park.
Marcus carrying groceries into Lauren’s house.
Marcus at Noah’s birthday.
There were dozens.
Then one photograph made my breath catch.
Eleanor stood beside Noah’s birthday cake.
Smiling.
My mother-in-law knew.
“She knew about him?”
Lauren nodded.
“From the beginning.”
I thought about every dinner Eleanor had spent criticizing my failure to provide Marcus with children.
Every remark.
Every sympathetic sigh.
Every suggestion that perhaps I was “too career-focused to understand motherhood.”
She had known her son already had a child.
And she had used that secret to humiliate me.
Lauren continued.
“Eleanor told me you couldn’t have children.”
My head snapped up.
“What?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
Lauren looked horrified.
“That wasn’t true?”
“No.”
I had never even tried.
Marcus had kept postponing it.
Lauren covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
Something inside me hardened further.
This was no longer simply infidelity.
It was psychological warfare.
They had built stories about me for different audiences.
To Lauren, I was dying.
To Eleanor’s social circle, I was selfish and possibly infertile.
To Arthur, Marcus and I were happy.
To me, we were simply delayed in starting our family.
Every person received a different version.
Marcus controlled all of them.
“Why are you here?” I asked Lauren.
She looked at him.
“Because someone came to my house last night.”
Marcus immediately looked alarmed.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“A black SUV parked across the street for almost an hour.”
Marcus stood again.
“Did they approach you?”
“No.”
“Did you call me?”
“I called three times.”
He checked his phone.
“You blocked me.”
“I blocked you after you told me I was paranoid.”
Her voice cracked.
“This morning I found the back door unlocked.”
Arthur leaned forward.
“Was anything missing?”
“I didn’t think so.”
She pushed the insurance policy toward me.
“Then I found that sitting on my kitchen table.”
The room went silent.
Somebody had entered Lauren’s house.
Not to steal.
To leave something.
A message.
David asked, “Where was the policy before?”
“I’ve never seen it.”
Marcus stared at the document.
“Someone wants Ximena to think I’m trying to kill her.”
That sentence made the entire room colder.
I had not said kill.
Neither had Lauren.
Marcus had.
He realized it too late.
David looked at me.
“We’re contacting law enforcement.”
Marcus stood.
“No.”
David stared at him.
“That wasn’t a request.”
Marcus turned toward me.
“Ximena, think. Whoever left this wants to turn you against me.”
I laughed softly.
“You did that yourself.”
“I didn’t forge that policy.”
“Maybe.”
“I swear.”
“Your promises are not evidence anymore.”
Arthur’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“What?”
He listened.
“Where?”
Another pause.
“We’re coming.”
He disconnected.
“Someone broke into my house.”
Eleanor.
“What happened to her?”
“She’s gone.”
Marcus froze.
“What do you mean gone?”
“The housekeeper arrived twenty minutes ago. The front door was open. Eleanor isn’t there.”
He looked at Marcus.
“There was blood on the kitchen floor.”
We drove separately.
Police were already outside the Vance estate when I arrived.
Eleanor’s handbag lay on the kitchen island.
Her phone was shattered beside the sink.
A small smear of blood streaked the tile.
Marcus shouted her name until an officer ordered him to stay outside the taped area.
Arthur stood silently near the entrance.
I watched detectives photograph everything.
Then one of them approached me.
“Mrs. Vance?”
“Yes.”
“We found something upstairs.”
He wore gloves.
Inside a clear evidence bag was a white envelope.
My name was written across the front.
XIMENA.
Inside was a printed photograph.
It showed me leaving my boutique three nights earlier.
Taken from across the street.
On the back were six words.
STOP LOOKING AT THE MONEY.
I felt Arthur beside me.
Marcus saw the photograph.
His face went pale.
For the first time, I believed one thing he had told me.
Someone wanted me frightened.
The detective asked, “Do you know anyone who might threaten you?”
Before I could answer, a police officer called from Eleanor’s garage.
“Detective!”
We followed him.
Behind a storage cabinet, officers had found a second phone.
A cheap prepaid device.
The call history showed dozens of conversations with one number.
Ivan.
But the messages were more interesting.
Most had been deleted.
One remained.
It was sent from Eleanor to Ivan at 11:43 the previous night.
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SCARE HER, NOT TELL HER EVERYTHING.
May you like
And Ivan’s response arrived twelve seconds later.
YOU NEVER TOLD ME MARCUS PLANNED TO MAKE HER DISAPPEAR.
