Chapter 6 - The Shadow in the Safe
Following the arraignment, the victim advocacy program placed me in a furnished corporate apartment in the north district of the city. It had concrete walls, triple-locked doors, and a private security guard in the lobby. It felt like a sterile prison, but it was safe.
Three days after the bail hearing, my cell phone rang with an unknown number. I hesitated, then answered, keeping the recording function active as Alvarez had instructed.
"Emily?"
The voice was female, hesitant, and trembling with anxiety. It wasn't Margaret.
"Who is this?" I asked.
"My name is Chloe. Chloe Bennett. I... I worked as Daniel’s executive assistant at Vanguard Wealth until last month."
A cold prickle ran down my neck. "Why are you calling me, Chloe?"
"Because Margaret’s lawyers came to my apartment yesterday," she said, her voice dropping to a panicked whisper. "They offered me fifty thousand dollars to sign a non-disclosure agreement and an affidavit stating that Daniel was with me on a business call during the time the police claim he was forging your signature on the insurance papers."
I sat up straight on the sofa, clutching the phone tightly. "Did you sign it?"
"No! No, I swear I didn't," she gasped, sounding close to tears. "Emily, I quit Vanguard because Daniel... he was doing things that terrified me. He told me he was going to get a massive windfall soon. He told me he was going to leave you and that we could start over in the Caymans. I told him he was insane and that I wanted nothing to do with him."
A sharp, familiar ache bloomed in my chest. Daniel had been sleeping with his assistant. It wasn't surprising, but the casual, sprawling breadth of his deceit continued to peel back like layers of rotting wood.
"Chloe, have you spoken to the police?"
"I'm terrified to," she cried softly. "Margaret threatened me. She told me that if I went to the district attorney, she would make sure I never worked in finance again. She said she’d sue me for corporate embezzlement. Daniel had access to my company login; he transferred funds using my IP address! If Margaret frames me, I’m the one who goes to prison!"
"Listen to me," I said firmly, my voice cutting through her panic. "Margaret Vance only has power if you play her game in the dark. Detective Alvarez is leading the investigation. She won't let Margaret frame you. Do you have proof of the transfers? Do you have Daniel’s communications?"
"I... I have his old work laptop," Chloe whispered. "When he was placed on administrative leave last Friday, he left it in his office. He had a secondary personal hard drive hidden inside the battery compartment. I took it because I knew he was setting me up to take the fall for his shorted accounts."
"What's on the drive, Chloe?"
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. When Chloe spoke again, her voice sounded drained of all blood.
"It’s not just the financial fraud, Emily. There are emails from four years ago. Before he married you. To a woman named Rebecca Shaw."
The room seemed to tilt beneath me.
Rebecca Shaw had been Daniel’s college sweetheart, the woman he had been engaged to before he met me. Daniel had told me she died in an accidental drowning while hiking in upstate New York. He had wept on our third date, telling me how the grief had shattered him, how finding me had saved his life.
"What do the emails say?" I demanded, my breath coming in shallow gasps.
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"Rebecca took out a life insurance policy before their hiking trip," Chloe said, her voice breaking. "And Margaret’s private trust wired Daniel three hundred thousand dollars two weeks after Rebecca's funeral to settle an undisclosed out-of-court wrongful death claim with Rebecca's parents."
***
