Chapter 3: What He Did Before the Flowers Wilted
I dropped the last two feet and landed quietly on the gravel path beside the service entrance.
The voices from the dining room were still audible through the open window above.
Brenda was laughing again.
Someone was refilling their glass.
I pressed my back against the exterior wall and opened my phone.
My lawyer, Patricia, had sent a follow-up message beneath the three-word notification.
*Call me when you're clear.
There's more.*
I typed back: *I'm out.
Give me ten minutes.*
I needed those ten minutes.
Not to calm down.
I was already calm in a way that frightened me slightly — the kind of calm that comes after the last piece of a puzzle locks into place and the picture is finally, horribly clear.
I needed the time to think about what I was walking away from and what I still needed to walk toward.
I moved along the side of the house toward the front gate, staying close to the hedgerow.
Through the dining room window I could see the back of Derek's head.
He was seated again, relaxed, one arm draped over his chair.
His uncle was telling a story.
Two of his cousins were laughing.
Nobody had noticed I was gone yet.
I unlatched the front gate and stepped through it onto the quiet residential street.
The morning was bright and ordinary.
A neighbor was watering her roses.
A car passed slowly.
The world had no idea.
I walked two blocks before I called Patricia.
She picked up on the first ring.
"Are you safe?" she said.
"I'm outside.
I'm fine."
"Good." A pause.
"Chloe, I need to tell you something, and I need you to stay steady when I do."
"Tell me."
"The transfer went through — your inheritance is fully protected, he can't touch it.
But while we were processing the paperwork, my paralegal ran the standard background check we do on all spouses in asset-protection cases." Another pause.
"Derek has done this before."
I stopped walking.
"What do you mean, before?"
"There was a woman named Sandra Okafor.
Married him four years ago in Phoenix.
The marriage lasted eleven months.
She came into it with a settlement from a workplace injury — about sixty thousand dollars.
When she left, it was gone.
He'd structured it through a joint account she'd been pressured into opening two weeks after the wedding."
"She lost everything?"
"Every cent.
She tried to pursue it legally but ran out of resources.
The case was dropped." Patricia's voice was careful and steady.
"There may be others.
We're still looking."
The neighbor's roses blurred slightly at the edges.
I blinked.
"He told me he'd never been married," I said.
"I know."
"He said it specifically.
On our third date.
He looked me in the eye and said it."
"I know, Chloe."
I started walking again because standing still felt worse.
"What do I need to do?" I said.
"Right now?
Find somewhere safe to stay tonight.
Don't go back to any property connected to him.
I'm filing for an emergency annulment on grounds of fraud — the prior marriage concealment alone is enough to start.
But I want you to come into the office tomorrow morning so we can go through everything properly."
"He's going to realize I'm gone soon."
"Yes.
And when he does, he'll call you.
Don't answer.
Let it go to voicemail.
Whatever he says, I want a record of it."
I turned the corner onto a wider street.
A taxi was idling outside a coffee shop twenty meters ahead.
"Patricia," I said.
"The woman in Phoenix.
Sandra.
Do you have a way to reach her?"
A brief silence.
"We have a last known address.
Why?"
"Because if he did this to her and he did this to me, I want to know if there's anyone else.
And I want her to know she's not the only one."
Patricia didn't answer immediately.
When she did, her voice had shifted slightly — something warmer underneath the professional steadiness.
"I'll find her," she said.
"Go get somewhere safe."
I flagged the taxi.
As it pulled to the curb, my phone buzzed in my hand.
Derek.
Calling.
I watched his name pulse on the screen three times.
Four.
Five.
Then I got in the taxi, put the phone face-down on the seat beside me, and told the driver the name of the hotel where my parents were still staying — they hadn't left yet, they were flying home tomorrow, and right now there was nowhere on earth I needed to be more.
The call went to voicemail.
Derek left a message forty seconds long.
May you like
I didn't listen to it until Patricia told me to, two days later.
By then, I wasn't the only one who heard it.
