Chapter 4 - THE DEAD WOMAN’S CODE HAD BEEN USED ELEVEN TIMESOlivia Ashford’s security credential had been active for eighteen months.
Dorian learned that at six the next morning.
Eleven entries.
Not one.
Eleven.
The first occurred three weeks after he married Sabine.
The most recent opened the door the night Eli ended up in the river.
Dorian stood inside a private hospital conference room while Jonah projected the access history onto a wall.
Audrey was not supposed to be there.
She said exactly that.
Dorian answered:
“You found him.”
“That doesn't make me law enforcement.”
“No.”
“And it doesn't make me family.”
He became quiet.
Eli had refused breakfast unless Audrey stayed nearby.
The hospital social worker recommended maintaining familiar safe contact for the first day if Audrey consented.
She had.
For Eli.
Not Dorian.
That distinction mattered to both of them.
Jonah pointed toward the timestamps.
“Olivia’s credential should have been permanently deleted after her death.”
“Why wasn't it?” Dorian asked.
“It was.”
Silence.
“Then somebody recreated it.”
“Yes.”
“Who can?”
“Security administrator.”
“Vendor.”
“Me.”
“Landon had system authority until last year.”
Sabine?
“No,” Jonah said.
“Her account is family-level but not administrative.”
Audrey studied the list.
“Where do the entries go?”
Jonah changed screens.
Five opened the west service corridor.
Three opened the garage.
Two accessed Eli’s floor.
One—
Dorian went still.
“What?”
Jonah hesitated.
“Olivia’s old room.”
Dorian’s face emptied.
Audrey did not know the house.
But the reaction explained enough.
“You kept her room?”
“Yes.”
Sabine entered the conference room without knocking.
“What are you doing?”
Dorian turned.
“Investigating.”
“With her?”
Her eyes moved toward Audrey.
There it was.
Contempt.
Not dramatic.
Class instinct.
“Eli wants her nearby,” Dorian said.
“Eli is traumatized.”
“That is exactly why.”
Sabine folded her arms.
“Do you understand what this looks like?”
Dorian frowned.
“What?”
“A strange woman pulls your son from the river and suddenly she is inside private family meetings.”
Audrey stood.
“Problem solved.”
Dorian looked toward her.
“No.”
She stared.
He corrected.
“Please stay if you are comfortable.”
Sabine laughed once.
“This is absurd.”
Audrey faced her.
“I agree.”
Sabine blinked.
“I should not be part of this.”
“Then why are you?”
“Because your stepson holds my sleeve every time I try to leave his room.”
Silence.
Audrey picked up her pharmacy bag, now dried and returned by police.
“I’m going home after he wakes.”
Dorian’s expression tightened.
Sabine looked satisfied.
Then Jonah said:
“Mrs. Ashford.”
Sabine turned.
“Where were you during the four-minute blind zone?”
Her face changed.
“Excuse me?”
“Standard question.”
“I was downstairs.”
“With whom?”
“My assistant.”
“Name?”
“Melanie.”
Jonah wrote it down.
Sabine’s eyes narrowed.
“You work for my husband.”
“Yes.”
“Not police.”
“No.”
“Then stop interrogating me.”
Dorian said quietly:
“He is asking because I told him to.”
Sabine stared at him.
Something cracked between them.
Not yet visible.
But there.
She turned and left.
Audrey looked toward Dorian.
“That marriage seems healthy.”
He gave her a look.
“Sorry.”
“No, you're not.”
“Correct.”
Jonah almost smiled.
Then the investigation shifted to Olivia’s old room.
Dorian insisted police enter first.
That surprised everyone who knew him.
New Orleans detectives searched.
The room had been preserved but not perfectly.
Olivia’s clothes were gone.
Personal belongings boxed.
A piano remained.
Books.
Family photographs.
Eli’s baby blanket inside a drawer.
Then investigators found something behind a vent.
A burner phone.
Modern.
Charged recently.
Not Olivia’s.
Call history wiped.
One saved photograph.
Sabine.
And Landon.
Inside what appeared to be a hotel room.
Kissing.
The date stamp was three months earlier.
Dorian stared.
No one spoke.
Audrey was not present for that discovery.
Good.
This part belonged to the family.
Jonah said:
“Boss.”
Dorian held up one hand.
He looked at the image again.
His wife.
His brother.
Not ambiguous.
Not a friendly kiss.
Not a bad angle.
Sabine’s hand inside Landon’s shirt collar.
His mouth on hers.
Dorian sat.
Jonah had known him eighteen years.
He had seen Dorian shot.
Arrested.
Betrayed.
At his father’s funeral.
At Olivia’s funeral.
Never like this.
“I’ll find him,” Jonah said.
Dorian looked up.
“No.”
Jonah froze.
“No?”
“Police.”
That word from Dorian Ashford sounded unnatural.
“They investigate.”
Jonah studied him.
“Boss, if Landon—”
“If I touch him now, every lawyer in Louisiana says I contaminated the investigation.”
He looked at the photograph.
“And if Eli saw this, I need the truth more than I need blood.”
That sentence would have surprised Audrey.
It surprised Dorian too.
Sabine returned to the hospital two hours later.
Dorian met her alone.
Mostly.
Detective Mara Landry from NOPD watched from an adjoining room.
Sabine entered.
“You wanted to see me?”
Dorian placed the photograph on the table.
Her face changed.
No denial.
Interesting.
“How long?” he asked.
Sabine looked at the picture.
Then him.
“Dorian.”
“How long?”
“Five months.”
The number landed.
“Five months.”
“Yes.”
“With my brother.”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“Why?”
A terrible question.
Always inadequate.
Sabine answered anyway.
“Because you were never really my husband.”
His eyes opened.
“You were married to Olivia’s ghost.”
“That is why you slept with Landon?”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“I slept with Landon because I wanted him.”
Honest.
Ugly.
Better than manipulation.
Dorian looked away.
“Did Eli see you?”
Sabine froze.
“What?”
“Did he see you together?”
“No.”
Too fast.
“Did you drug him?”
Her face emptied.
“Absolutely not.”
“Did Landon?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you use Olivia’s credential?”
“No.”
That one sounded true.
Dorian watched her.
“Then explain the phone.”
“I can't.”
“You have five months of an affair.”
“A burner phone hidden in my dead wife’s room.”
“My son leaves through a dead woman’s security account.”
“And you expect me to believe none of these things touch each other?”
Sabine’s eyes filled.
“Landon told me he kept a phone somewhere in the house.”
Dorian stopped.
“What?”
“He said it was safer.”
“For your affair.”
“Yes.”
“Olivia’s room?”
“I didn't know.”
“Did he have access?”
“I assumed.”
“Did he know about the threats against Eli?”
“Of course.”
“Did he create them?”
“No.”
“Sabine.”
“I don't know!”
For the first time her composure broke.
“I slept with him.”
“I lied.”
“I met him in hotels.”
“I wanted out of this marriage and I was too much of a coward to say it.”
Her voice cracked.
“But I did not throw your son into a river.”
Dorian stared.
That distinction mattered.
Cheating was not attempted murder.
He had spent enough years around guilty people to know one sin did not prove another.
“Would Landon hurt Eli?”
Sabine looked away.
That frightened him more than yes.
“What?”
She swallowed.
“Two weeks ago he asked what happens to Ashford Maritime if you die before Eli is eighteen.”
Dorian became still.
“What did you say?”
“That the voting trust activates.”
“And?”
“He asked who controls it.”
Dorian already knew.
Three trustees.
Jonah Mercer.
Dorian’s attorney.
And Landon.
His brother.
Sabine continued:
“I thought he was talking business.”
“You thought your lover asking about my death and my child’s inheritance was business?”
Her face collapsed.
“When you say it that way…”
“There is no better way.”
Dorian stood.
Sabine whispered:
“Dorian.”
He looked at her.
“Are we done?”
The question carried marriage inside it.
Everything.
He answered:
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
Not because she had lost money.
Perhaps because endings hurt even when deserved.
“Did you ever love me?”
he asked.
She thought.
“I loved being chosen by you.”
That was not the same.
Dorian nodded.
Then:
“You will cooperate with police.”
“Yes.”
“You will stay away from Eli unless his therapist says otherwise.”
Her face tightened.
“I care about him.”
“Then care about what he needs.”
She accepted that.
Good.
By afternoon detectives located Landon’s abandoned car near the French Quarter.
No Landon.
His phone had been turned off.
His bank accounts untouched.
His passport still flagged.
He had not fled far.
Then Audrey received a call.
Unknown number.
She was back inside her small apartment, finally showered, bruises darkening across her body.
She answered because her elderly client sometimes called from borrowed phones.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice said:
“You should have let the river keep him.”
Audrey stopped breathing.
The line disconnected.
Then a photograph arrived.
Her apartment door.
Taken from the hallway.
Right now.
Audrey looked toward the lock.
Someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
She backed away.
Then her phone rang again.
Dorian.
She answered in a whisper.
“Someone is outside.”
His voice changed instantly.
“Do not open the door.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Police are already on the way.”
“How?”
A pause.
“I put security on your building.”
Audrey’s fear collided with anger.
“You what?”
“I'll apologize later.”
“You absolutely will.”
Then the doorknob moved.
Audrey grabbed the heaviest thing within reach.
A cast-iron skillet.
And from the hallway came a voice she recognized.
Not Landon.
Jonah Mercer.
“Audrey.”
She froze.
“Open the door.”
Her stomach dropped.
Because Jonah was supposed to be at the hospital.
May you like
And the security log had already established one fact.
Jonah was one of the very few people capable of resurrecting Olivia Ashford’s dead access code.
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