Chapter 6: The Woman Who Had Done This Before
I did not sleep that night.
I sat in my study with the door locked and listened to Marcus Hale for forty minutes.
Her real name was Diane Collier.
She was originally from a small city in Ohio.
She had been married twice before — once at twenty-four to a retired engineer named Howard Peck, who died eighteen months into the marriage of what was ruled a cardiac event, and once at twenty-nine to a widower named Stuart Ames, a property developer in his late sixties, who survived but lost nearly everything before his daughter intervened and had the marriage annulled.
"The daughter hired a private investigator," Marcus said.
"That investigator's report is how I found the pattern.
Diane — your wife — she moves carefully.
She builds the relationship slowly.
She gets access to accounts.
She creates documentation.
And then she exits."
"Howard Peck," I said.
"He d*ed."
"The cardiac event was never investigated as anything other than natural causes.
He was seventy-one.
He had a history of heart issues."
I thought about the supplement.
The tiredness that had gone away.
"Is there enough to go to the police?"
"The forged document alone is enough to open a case.
Combined with the financial transfer authorization, the pattern across two prior marriages, and the identity fraud — yes.
But timing matters.
If she moves the money before you act, recovery becomes complicated." He paused.
"Gerald wants to move tomorrow.
He's already spoken to a contact at the financial crimes unit.
They'll need your cooperation and the original document."
"She can't know," I said.
"If she suspects anything—"
"She won't," Marcus said.
"We move quietly.
One day."
After I hung up, I sat for a long time without moving.
I thought about Mary.
About fifty years of a life built with someone who knew every version of me — young and uncertain, middle-aged and stubborn, old and slower than I wanted to admit.
Mary had loved all of those versions without needing to perform it.
I thought about Gwen sitting across from me at dinner, her hand warm over mine, talking about Portugal.
I had wanted so badly to believe that someone could look at me the way she looked at me and mean it.
The anger came slowly, the way it always did with me.
Not a flash.
A tide.
In the morning, I called Chloe before Gwen was awake.
"I need you to come in early," I said.
"And I need you to act exactly as you always do.
Can you do that?"
A pause.
"Yes, Mr.
Franklin," she said.
"I can do that."
"Chloe." I stopped.
"What you did two nights ago — coming to me — that took courage.
I want you to know I understand that."
She was quiet for a moment.
"My mother used to say that staying silent when you see something wrong is its own kind of choice," she said.
"I didn't want to make that choice."
I arrived at Gerald's office at nine.
Marcus was already there, along with a woman named Detective Renata Sousa from the financial crimes unit.
She was compact and direct and she had already read Marcus's report.
She looked at the forged document for less than thirty seconds.
"We can move on this," she said.
"I'll need you available this afternoon.
And Mr.
Sterling — I need you to go home after this meeting and behave as though nothing has changed.
Can you manage that?"
"I managed it last night," I said.
She looked at me steadily.
"This afternoon, we'll need her in a position where she cannot access the account or destroy documentation.
That means we need to know where she'll be and for how long."
"She has a standing appointment," I said.
"Hair salon.
Every Thursday at two.
She's usually gone for two hours."
Detective Sousa checked her watch.
May you like
Today was Thursday.
"Perfect," she said.
