PART 4 — My Husband’s Other Life
Her name was Celeste Rowan.
Naomi found her in less than an hour.
Former corporate intelligence consultant.
Licensed private investigator in three states.
Twice sued for unlawful surveillance.
Never convicted.
She had worked for banks, political campaigns and several families wealthy enough to make scandals disappear before the public ever heard about them.
Most recently, she had been paid through a shell company linked to Vance Strategic Group.
The payments began eight months after my wedding.
“They hired someone to investigate you,” Naomi said.
“Or my father.”
“Possibly both.”
We sat inside the secure conference room at Mercer Legacy while rain streaked across the windows.
On the table between us lay the last photograph of my father.
He stood beside his plane, smiling into the sunlight.
Behind him, Celeste Rowan appeared to be speaking with the pilot.
The serpent bracelet circled her wrist.
“The accident report said a fuel-line defect caused the crash,” Naomi said.
“I remember.”
“The aircraft was destroyed.”
“I remember that too.”
“There was no usable flight recorder.”
I looked at her.
“Why are you telling me things I already know?”
“Because I want you to hear how convenient they sound.”
A coldness moved through me.
My father had died when I was twenty-four.
Three months before the crash, he had changed his estate plan and transferred voting control of Mercer Legacy to me.
At the time, I assumed he was preparing me for adulthood.
What if he had been preparing for danger?
Naomi opened another document.
“The pilot had gambling debts.”
“How much?”
“Nearly six hundred thousand dollars.”
“Were they paid?”
“Two days after the crash.”
I pushed back from the table.
“By whom?”
“We don’t know yet.”
My phone rang.
Garrick.
I answered on speaker.
“You have thirty seconds.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
“You always become dramatic when you’re frightened.”
“Twenty-five.”
“I can explain Celeste.”
“Twenty.”
“She was investigating threats against the Vance family.”
“Interesting. Because her payments began shortly after you gained access to my father’s archived files.”
Silence.
Naomi wrote something on a legal pad.
Garrick finally spoke.
“You shouldn’t trust Naomi.”
“You filed a petition claiming I hallucinated my own assets.”
“And tomorrow, a judge may still agree that you’re unstable.”
“You admitted the slap happened.”
“My mother misspoke.”
“Miriam admitted you touched me.”
“She said barely.”
The casual cruelty in his voice clarified something.
Garrick was not ashamed.
He was inconvenienced.
“I know you’re afraid,” he continued. “Come home, dismiss the lawyers and we can repair this privately.”
“There is no home.”
“The mansion is ours.”
“It is mine.”
“Marriage makes it marital property.”
“Not when it was purchased through a premarital trust.”
His breathing changed.
That was the first moment I knew he had not reviewed the title carefully.
“You think paperwork protects you?”
“I think evidence will.”
“Evidence can disappear.”
Naomi’s eyes narrowed.
“Was that a threat?” she asked.
Garrick laughed.
“Naomi. Still feeding on other people’s families?”
She reached for the phone, but I stopped her.
“What happened to my father?” I asked.
The line went silent.
Then Garrick said, “Ask the woman you’ve trusted since you were a child.”
I looked at Naomi.
Her expression hardened, but she did not look away.
“Who?”
“Your beloved aunt Evelyn.”
The call ended.
I remained still.
Evelyn Mercer was my father’s younger sister.
After his death, she had managed the trust until my thirtieth birthday.
She was the person who had introduced me to Naomi.
The person who had encouraged me to hide my wealth from Garrick.
The person who called every Sunday morning.
Naomi closed the laptop.
“He’s trying to divide us.”
“Did Evelyn know Celeste?”
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” Naomi said quietly. “It isn’t.”
We drove to Evelyn’s home without warning.
She lived outside the city in a stone farmhouse surrounded by apple trees and long fields of winter grass.
The woman who opened the door looked nothing like the elegant aunt I knew.
She wore an old cardigan, her hair uncombed.
And she was holding a packed suitcase.
“You’re leaving,” I said.
Evelyn looked past me toward Naomi.
“You shouldn’t have brought her.”
Naomi stepped forward.
“Celeste Rowan.”
Evelyn went pale.
That was enough.
I entered without being invited.
The house smelled like coffee and smoke.
Papers had been burned in the fireplace.
Some still glowed beneath the ashes.
“What did you destroy?”
Evelyn closed the door.
“Things that could hurt you.”
“Garrick knows Celeste was connected to Dad’s plane.”
Her eyes filled with fear.
“Garrick knows too much.”
“So do you.”
She sat slowly.
For several seconds, the only sound was the crackle of burning paper.
Then Evelyn told me the first truth.
My father’s death had not been an accident.
At least, he had not believed it would be.
Two weeks before the crash, he discovered that a senior Mercer executive was laundering money through overseas logistics contracts.
The executive was working with three other people.
One was a banker.
One was a government procurement officer.
And one was a young financial consultant named Arthur Vance.
Garrick’s father.
My stomach tightened.
“Arthur died twelve years ago.”
“Yes,” Evelyn said. “But before he died, he gave copies of the old transaction records to Miriam.”
“Miriam knew?”
“She knew enough to blackmail people.”
“Did she arrange the crash?”
“I never proved it.”
“But you suspected her.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Your father canceled the flight the night before. Then someone called and persuaded him to go.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve had twenty years.”
“I spent those years trying to keep you alive.”
The anger inside me flared.
“You let me marry her son.”
“I begged you not to.”
“You told me Garrick was arrogant. You never told me his family might have killed my father.”
“I had no proof.”
“You had enough to burn documents when I arrived.”
Evelyn looked toward the fireplace.
“I was burning names.”
“Why?”
“Because Celeste contacted me this morning.”
Naomi and I exchanged a look.
“What did she want?” I asked.
“To meet.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where?”
Evelyn hesitated.
I stepped closer.
“Where?”
“At the old Mercer aviation hangar.”
The location where my father had taken his final photograph.
Naomi immediately objected.
“We’re not going.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Elena, it’s an obvious trap.”
“Then we won’t go alone.”
At 8:40 that evening, three private security vehicles surrounded the abandoned hangar.
Police had been informed but remained at a distance because we had no proof of an immediate crime.
I entered with Naomi and two security officers.
Celeste stood beneath a broken overhead light.
She wore the red coat.
The serpent bracelet gleamed on her wrist.
“You look like Daniel,” she said.
“Did you send the photograph of Garrick?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he stopped paying me.”
Naomi’s disgust was immediate.
“So this is extortion.”
Celeste smiled.
“Call it professional self-preservation.”
I held up the old photograph.
“You were with my father before his flight.”
“I warned him not to board.”
“Did Miriam hire you?”
“No.”
“Arthur?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Celeste’s smile disappeared.
“Your father hired me.”
The revelation hit harder than I expected.
“Why?”
“He knew someone inside Mercer was selling his movements. He asked me to identify the leak.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Who was it?”
Celeste looked past me into the darkness.
“Evelyn.”
I turned.
My aunt had followed us into the hangar.
Her face crumpled.
“Elena, listen to me.”
Celeste reached into her coat.
Security raised their weapons.
But she only produced a flash drive.
“Your aunt gave Arthur Vance the flight schedule,” Celeste said. “She believed he only wanted to confront your father.”
Evelyn shook her head frantically.
“I didn’t know about the bomb.”
The word echoed through the hangar.
Bomb.
Not mechanical failure.
Not a damaged fuel line.
A bomb.
My knees nearly weakened.
Naomi took my arm.
Celeste held out the drive.
“This contains recordings, payments and photographs. Garrick found part of the archive last year. Since then, he and Miriam have been searching for the rest.”
“Why marry me?” I whispered.
Celeste’s expression turned almost pitying.
“Because Miriam believed your father hid the missing evidence inside the Mercer family trust.”
A sound came from outside.
Tires on gravel.
One of the security officers touched his earpiece.
“Multiple vehicles approaching.”
The hangar doors suddenly began to close.
May you like
The lights went out.
And in the darkness, someone fired a gun.
