Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
I stared at the photograph until my eyes burned.
Brandon.
Another woman.
A pregnant woman.
The detective took my phone.
“Do you recognize her?”
“No.”
He studied the image.
“Do you recognize the location?”
I zoomed in.
A restaurant.
A place in Phoenix.
The same city Brandon had supposedly been visiting for work.
My hands began to shake.
I had spent years believing my husband was distant because he was stressed.
I had forgiven late nights.
Missed anniversaries.
Secret phone calls.
Now I wondered how much of my marriage had been a carefully constructed lie.
The detective traced the number that sent the photo.
It belonged to a woman named Claire Morgan.
She agreed to meet us.
We met in a small coffee shop two hours later.
Claire looked exhausted.
She was approximately thirty years old.
And very pregnant.
When she saw me, she stood.
“I am sorry.”
I didn't sit.
“Who are you?”
Claire looked down.
“I was Brandon's fiancée.”
The words struck me harder than I expected.
“Fiancée?”
She nodded.
“He told me his wife was dying.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He said you had a terminal illness.”
I felt something inside me go completely cold.
Claire began crying.
“He told me you had cancer. He said you didn't have long.”
I sat down.
“Why would he tell you that?”
“Because he said he wanted to marry me after you died.”
The detective leaned forward.
“How long have you known him?”
“Three years.”
Three years.
My marriage was ten years old.
Claire pulled out her phone.
“He told me he was going to inherit money from you.”
I looked at the detective.
“What money?”
Claire opened a message thread.
Brandon had written:
Once she is gone, I will have access to everything.
I couldn't breathe.
Then another message.
My mother knows how to handle the child.
I looked at Claire.
“What child?”
She began sobbing.
“I thought he meant your daughter.”
The detective's face hardened.
“Did Brandon ever talk about insurance?”
Claire nodded.
“He said the policy would make everything easier.”
The room became silent.
I remembered the magnets.
Thirty-six of them.
A child who had nearly died.
A life insurance policy.
A secret lover.
And a mother who had tried to make my daughter swallow objects that could kill her.
I suddenly understood.
Nancy had not been the intended victim.
She had been the first target.
The detective looked at me.
“Mrs. Carter, we need to know something. Did your husband have access to your medications?”
I thought about the pills I had been taking for migraines.
The strange dizziness.
The unexplained nausea.
The two times I had fainted at home.
I had blamed stress.
The detective wrote everything down.
Then he asked:
“Do you have a safe in your house?”
“Yes.”
“Who knows the combination?”
“Brandon.”
The detective exchanged a look with his partner.
“We're going to your house.”
When we arrived, the front door was open.
I froze.
The house had been locked when I left.
The detective drew his weapon.
“Stay behind me.”
We entered slowly.
Nothing seemed disturbed.
Then we heard a sound from upstairs.
A drawer closing.
Someone was inside.
The detective moved toward the staircase.
A shadow appeared at the top.
Brandon.
He was holding something in his hand.
A small black box.
My safe.
He looked at me.
May you like
Then he said:
“You were never supposed to find out this soon.”
