Chapter 4 - The Man I MarriedI reached the service stairwell seconds before the office door opened behind me.
I didn't look back.
Twenty-three floors separated me from the lobby, but the garage was only four levels below. I took the stairs barefoot after kicking off my heels.
On level nineteen, I heard the stairwell door open above me.
Someone followed.
I reached seventeen.
Sixteen.
Fifteen.
My lungs burned.
Then a fire alarm exploded through the building.
Red emergency lights flashed.
Whoever was following me stopped.
I didn't.
I reached the garage and ran to the security station.
Empty.
My car sat thirty yards away.
I was halfway there when headlights came on.
A black SUV moved toward me.
Fast.
I jumped behind a concrete pillar.
The SUV accelerated past.
Then another vehicle screamed around the corner and blocked its exit.
Julian's car.
He climbed out.
“Get in!”
I had never been happier to see someone I was divorcing.
The SUV reversed.
Julian pulled me into his car.
We left through the opposite ramp.
Neither of us spoke until we reached Atlantic Avenue.
Then I turned on him.
“How did you know where I was?”
“You told me not to leave Aurelia. Then your phone stopped answering.”
“So?”
“So I checked the location app.”
I stared.
“You still have access?”
“You never removed me.”
I would correct that later.
“What happened?”
I showed him the message.
Not the flash drive.
Not yet.
His face changed.
“Malcolm?”
“I think so.”
Julian stared ahead.
“Then we're in deeper trouble than I thought.”
“Tell me about the photograph.”
He reached into his jacket.
Three men stood beside a marina.
Daniel Vance.
Malcolm Reed.
Richard Mercer.
The date printed on the photograph was six months before my father's death.
On the back were four words:
They know about Meridian.
“What's Meridian?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
I studied Julian.
For years, I had believed I could tell when he lied.
Clearly, I had overestimated myself.
“Why were you at Aurelia?”
He exhaled.
“I went back for my personal files.”
“Before investigators could search them?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“I didn't steal from Aurelia.”
“You approved payments to Camilla's shell company.”
“I approved consulting invoices Camilla brought me.”
“Millions of dollars.”
“They had Malcolm's authorization.”
There it was.
“You never verified them?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Julian looked ashamed.
“Because Malcolm promised me the presidency.”
Ambition.
Not innocence.
But perhaps not the crime I had assumed.
“You were willing not to ask questions.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised me.
“I wanted the job badly enough to see what I wanted to see.”
“And Camilla?”
He was silent.
“Don't insult me with another lie.”
“Yes,” he said finally. “The affair was real.”
The words hurt even though I already knew.
“How long?”
“Fourteen months.”
“Did you love her?”
“No.”
“That makes it worse.”
“I know.”
For once, he didn't defend himself.
We stopped at a red light.
Julian looked at me.
“I became someone I don't recognize.”
“I recognize him perfectly.”
He flinched.
Good.
“Why did you take my mother's earrings?”
“I didn't.”
I stared at him.
“Camilla was wearing them.”
“I know. I noticed tonight.”
“Then how did she get them?”
“I thought you gave them to her.”
I almost laughed.
“Why would I give your mistress jewelry?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds insane.”
“It sounded insane before.”
The light changed.
We drove toward Aurelia.
At two in the morning, Evelyn Shaw met us with two investigators.
I gave her the photograph.
Then I finally revealed the flash drive.
We watched my mother's video together.
Julian sat across the conference table without speaking.
When it ended, Evelyn looked shaken.
“Meridian,” she said.
“You know it?”
“Not exactly.”
She opened Aurelia's corporate archive.
Meridian wasn't a company.
It was a project.
A classified prototype developed twelve years earlier: industrial battery technology capable of dramatically extending storage life.
Aurelia had abandoned it after its lead engineer died.
The engineer's name appeared on screen.
Richard Mercer.
Julian stood so abruptly his chair fell backward.
“My father wasn't in finance.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “He designed Meridian.”
I looked at Julian.
His face had lost all color.
Evelyn opened another record.
Three months before Richard's death, Meridian's patent rights had quietly been transferred to an offshore entity.
Authorization signatures appeared beneath the transfer.
Daniel Vance.
Richard Mercer.
And Malcolm Reed.
Julian shook his head.
“My father would never have signed this.”
“Neither would mine,” I said.
Which left one possibility.
The signatures were forged.
At 2:17 a.m., the building security system notified us that someone had entered Camilla's office.
We looked at the camera feed.
Camilla stood inside.
She wasn't alone.
May you like
Malcolm Reed entered behind her.
And in his hand was a gun.
Related Stories
