Chapter 3 - The Wife Before Me
I did not sleep that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Rebecca Lane's face. The photograph had been taken years before Nolan and I met, yet the ring on her finger was unmistakable.
It was the same design Nolan had chosen for me.
A square-cut diamond surrounded by a thin halo of smaller stones, set in platinum. The jeweler had told us it was a custom piece commissioned by Nolan's family. I had never questioned the story because I had been too overwhelmed by the proposal.
Now I wondered whether the ring had been custom-made for someone else.
“Could it simply be a popular design?” Bridget asked when I showed her the enlarged photograph the following morning.
“Not that design. Look at the setting.”
She examined the image.
I was right. One of the small stones sat slightly lower than the others, a tiny flaw that had always irritated me. Nolan had promised to have it repaired, but he never did.
Rebecca's ring had the exact same flaw.
Bridget called a jeweler she trusted and arranged for an independent comparison. Then she contacted a private investigator who specialized in historical financial cases.
“Don't make accusations yet,” she warned me. “We need facts.”
I understood. Facts had kept me alive long enough to reach this hospital.
At noon, Detective Voss returned with a file from the county archive.
Rebecca Lane had died eleven years earlier at the age of twenty-six. Her car had left a mountain road during a snowstorm and plunged down an embankment. The vehicle was recovered the following morning. She had been pronounced dead at the scene.
The official report described the incident as a tragic accident.
There had been no passengers.
No witnesses.
No indication of foul play.
“Was Nolan interviewed?” I asked.
Voss turned a page.
“He was her fiancé. He gave a statement saying they had argued that evening and he had gone home alone.”
“An argument?”
“He told investigators Rebecca had been drinking and refused to let him drive her home. He said he believed she was going to stay with a friend.”
“Did they verify that?”
“The report doesn't say.”
I read the statement again.
Nolan had told police that Rebecca was emotionally unstable, prone to irrational decisions, and capable of making dangerous choices when upset.
I felt sick.
The language was almost identical to the statements he, Patricia, and Emma had submitted about me.
“He used the same story,” I whispered. “The same words.”
Voss nodded slowly.
“It's a pattern worth investigating.”
A knock sounded at the door. A woman in a gray coat entered, carrying a small leather portfolio.
She introduced herself as Dr. Miriam Shaw, an independent forensic psychologist appointed to assess my mental competence after the psychiatric allegations.
For a brief, terrifying moment, I wondered whether she would believe me.
Instead, she sat beside my bed and spoke calmly.
“I've reviewed the allegations submitted by your husband. They are claims, not established facts. My responsibility is to evaluate your present condition, your ability to understand your circumstances, and your ability to make decisions.”
“Will you read my financial evidence?” I asked.
“If it is relevant to the assessment, yes. But I will not assume that being a victim of violence makes you incapable of making decisions.”
She conducted the evaluation for nearly an hour. She asked me about the attack, my memories, my work, my marriage, and the records I had collected. I answered carefully, admitting what I could not remember and distinguishing it from what I knew.
I told her about the insurance policy and the recording.
I explained the shell companies.
I described the threats and the psychiatric accusations.
Finally, she closed her notebook.
“You are understandably frightened and distressed,” she said. “That is not the same as being unable to make decisions.”
For the first time in days, I exhaled without pain in my chest.
“Will you tell the court?”
“I will submit my findings through the appropriate process.”
She stood, then hesitated.
“Mrs. Whitmore, I want you to understand something. A coordinated accusation can be extremely intimidating, especially when several people appear to agree on the same narrative. But consistency does not automatically mean truth. Sometimes people repeat the same story because they genuinely witnessed the same event. Sometimes they repeat it because they've agreed upon what they want others to believe.”
After she left, I looked at Bridget.
“They're going to use my fear against me.”
“Then we document the fear, the reasons for it, and the evidence supporting those reasons.”
Bridget never promised that everything would be fine. I trusted her more for that.
At three o'clock, the private investigator called.
His name was Miles Carter. He had located Rebecca's younger sister, Lauren, who lived in a neighboring state under her married name.
Lauren had agreed to speak with us.
“She never believed the accident report,” Miles explained over the phone. “She says Rebecca was terrified of Nolan before she died.”
I sat upright despite the pain.
“What did she say?”
“According to Lauren, Rebecca had discovered irregularities in a company Nolan was helping his father manage. She wanted to go to the police. Two days before the accident, she told Lauren she had evidence that could put several people in prison.”
Bridget and I exchanged a glance.
“Did she mention the insurance policy?” I asked.
“No. Lauren doesn't remember anything about insurance. But she says Rebecca had a folder she called her safety file. It disappeared after the funeral.”
“What happened to the family afterward?”
“Rebecca's parents received a settlement from the estate. Lauren says they were told the money came from a life insurance policy, but she never saw the paperwork. The payout was unusually large for someone Rebecca's age.”
My hands began to tremble.
A young woman discovers financial crimes. Her fiancé describes her as unstable. She dies in a winter accident. The evidence disappears. Her family receives money. Years later, the same man marries another woman, who begins investigating the same type of financial fraud and suffers a violent attack during freezing weather.
There were too many similarities to ignore.
But one question remained.
“Who received the original insurance payout?” I asked.
Miles paused.
“I'm checking that now. The policy records are difficult to obtain because the company changed ownership twice. I'll need another day.”
Before we could continue, Voss entered holding his phone.
“I've got news about Victor.”
He placed it on the bedside table.
Victor's flight to Zurich had not been his only travel booking. Three days before the beating, he had purchased another ticket, this time to a small town in the northern mountains.
The reservation used a different payment card and a company account that did not appear on his declared expenses.
“What's in that town?” Bridget asked.
“A private property owned by the Whitmore family. It used to be a hunting lodge. Nolan's father sold most of the surrounding land years ago, but the main building remains in a family trust.”
I stared at Voss.
“Why would Victor go there?”
“We don't know yet.”
Then he showed us an image taken from an airport security camera.
Victor was carrying a dark briefcase.
A second man walked beside him.
The picture was grainy, but the man's face was visible.
I knew him immediately.
Leonard Whitmore.
Nolan's uncle.
Leonard had supposedly died of a heart attack six years earlier. I had attended his funeral, stood beside Patricia, and listened to the family priest describe him as a generous patriarch whose business acumen had built the foundation for Whitmore Holdings.
I remembered the coffin being closed.
I remembered Patricia refusing to let anyone see his face.
“That's impossible,” I whispered.
Voss frowned. “You recognize him?”
“He's dead.”
Voss studied the photograph again.
“I don't think he got the message.”
Bridget was already making calls, requesting records and notifying the appropriate authorities that a supposedly deceased man might be using an alias.
I remained frozen, staring at Leonard's face.
If he was alive, then the family had lied about more than money.
The entire history of Whitmore Holdings might have been constructed around a false death.
That evening, Lauren Lane called me directly.
Miles had arranged a secure video conversation. Her face appeared on my laptop, pale and tense, her eyes fixed on the camera.
“I've seen your photograph,” she said. “You look like Rebecca.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't understand. You look so much like her that when I saw the news about your attack, I thought someone had used an old picture.”
She rubbed her hands together.
“Rebecca told me Nolan had a family secret. She said the business was built on something terrible, and the family protected it because every person involved had something to lose.”
“What was the secret?”
“She didn't tell me the details. She said she was going to meet someone who could help her expose it.”
“Who?”
Lauren closed her eyes.
“Victor Sloane.”
My stomach dropped.
“Did Victor help her?”
“I don't know. Rebecca went to see him the night before the accident. When she came home, she was crying. She said she had made a terrible mistake by trusting him.”
The screen flickered as Lauren moved closer.
“There was one other thing,” she whispered. “Rebecca told me that if anything happened to her, I should never trust a Whitmore who claimed to be protecting the family.”
I wanted to ask more, but someone knocked on Lauren's door.
She turned sharply.
“That's impossible. Nobody knows I'm talking to you.”
A voice sounded from outside.
“Lauren? It's the police. We need you to come with us.”
Her face drained of color.
Then she looked back at me.
“Tessa, listen carefully. Rebecca had a copy of the original company ledger. She hid it somewhere nobody in the family would ever think to look.”
“Where?”
Lauren opened her mouth.
A crash sounded outside the room.
May you like
She screamed.
The call went dead.
