Chapter 5
I held her gaze. “I became suspicious after discovering unauthorized transfers from a company account into a consulting entity tied to my husband. My attorney can provide documentation. My investigator can provide additional records.”
Grant flushed red. “You had me followed?”
“Yes.”
“You violated my privacy?”
I stared at him. “You planned to steal my company while I was unconscious in a medical room.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it.
Vanessa broke first.
They brought her past the conference room crying, mascara streaked down her cheeks, wrists held together in front of her. She saw Grant and twisted toward him.
“You said she would just sign!” she cried. “You said nobody would get hurt!”
Grant did not look at her.
That was when Vanessa understood what she had been to him. Not a partner. Not a future wife. Not the woman who would stand beside him after he reduced my life to signatures and assets.
She had been useful.
Nothing else.
Her expression changed completely. Grief disappeared, replaced by shock, then rage.
Detective Morris noticed.
So did Ruth.
By midnight, Vanessa was talking.
By two in the morning, Ruth had enough to seek emergency civil orders against them both. By dawn, Dr. Cole’s preliminary report confirmed a sedative compound in my bloodstream that did not match any medication prescribed to me.
At 7:15 a.m., I stood in my kitchen while police searched the bedroom Grant and I had shared.
The house looked different in the gray morning light. The marble counters, the framed wedding photo in the hallway, the blue velvet sofa Grant had insisted made us look “established.” Everything felt staged now, like I had been living inside a showroom arranged by a man who never planned to stay unless ownership came with the furniture.
Ruth stood beside me with a paper cup of coffee.
“You should sit,” she said.
“I’ve been sitting all night.”
“You were drugged.”
“I noticed.”
She sighed. “Your sarcasm is medically encouraging.”
That almost made me smile.
A detective came out of Grant’s office carrying a sealed evidence bag. Inside was a small amber vial.
Grant, seated at the dining table under guard, watched it pass with dead eyes.
Detective Morris asked, “Do you recognize this?”
“No,” Grant said.
Vanessa, brought separately to identify evidence, looked at the vial and started crying again.
“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s it.”
May you like
Grant turned on her. “Shut up.”
But she did not.
