Chapter 3: The Other Woman
“Samantha Reed?”
My mother stood so quickly that her chair struck the wall.
Laura stepped between my bed and the closed door.
“Who are you?” Laura called.
“My name is Leah Morgan.
I work with Brandon.”
Detective Harris was still on the phone.
“Do not open that door until security searches her.”
A few minutes later, Leah entered with both hands visible.
She was about forty, neatly dressed, and holding a small brass key inside a clear plastic bag.
My mother pointed at her.
“Are you the woman Brandon mentioned?”
Leah’s face lost its color.
“What exactly did he say about me?”
“That you could take Samantha’s place.”
Leah gripped the back of the chair.
“He told me Samantha was his cousin.
He said she was staying with his parents because she couldn’t manage money.”
I pushed myself upright despite the pain.
“He told you I was his cousin?”
“He showed me paperwork with your maiden name.
Samantha Reed.” Leah looked at my hospital bracelet.
“He said Samantha Cole was someone else.”
“My legal name is Samantha Cole.”
Leah covered her mouth.
“Then I helped him without knowing.”
“Helped him do what?”
“I prepare invoices for the small construction company where he works.
Six months ago, he asked me to type loan applications.
He said his wife was too sick to complete them.”
My mother moved closer to the bed.
“How much money?”
“One application was for eighty thousand dollars.
Another used a house as security.”
“Whose house?” I asked.
Leah looked at my mother.
“A property on Briarwood Avenue.”
My mother’s fingers slipped from the bed rail.
“That’s my home.”
Detective Harris’s voice came sharply through the phone.
“Leah, where did you get that key?”
“Brandon dropped it beside his desk yesterday.
I heard him tell Walter to move the basement box to a storage unit before the police returned.”
“You took the key?”
“I picked it up after they left.” Leah placed the bag on the bedside table.
“The tag says Unit 214.”
I stared at her.
“Why bring it to me?”
“Because he came back laughing.” Her eyes filled, but she did not look away.
“He said, ‘By tomorrow, Samantha will look like the liar, and her mother will lose the house.’”
My mother sank into the chair.
Leah turned toward me.
“I believed him when he said he was trapped in a bad marriage.
Last month, he asked me to marry him once his divorce was complete.”
I removed my wedding ring and set it beside the key.
“There was never going to be an honest divorce.”
“I know that now.”
Detective Harris told Leah to wait for an officer.
Then my mother’s phone lit up on the blanket.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
She opened the message before I could stop her.
It showed her front porch, photographed only seconds earlier.
Beneath it were twelve words:
Tell Samantha to change her statement, or her mother loses everything.
My mother tried to hide the screen against her chest.
“Mom, let me see it.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Please don’t protect him for me.”
She handed me the phone.
Another message arrived while I was reading.
Ask her what she signed on March fourteenth.
I looked up.
“What happened on March fourteenth?”
May you like
My mother’s lips began to tremble.
“That,” she whispered, “was the day Brandon came to my house alone.”
