Chapter 6 - The Paper Trail
|
By 9:00 PM that same evening, the house was completely silent.
Clara had managed to put a traumatized Emma to sleep in her crib, while Olivia sat on her bed upstairs, reading a book to keep her mind off the nightmare we had just lived through.
I stood in the center of the master bedroom suite that Vanessa and I had shared for the past eight months.
Looking at the room now, it felt like standing in the lair of an enemy spy. Her expensive silk dresses hung neatly in the walk-in closet. Her expensive perfumes lined the marble vanity. To anyone else, it looked like the bedroom of a wealthy, elegant woman.
But I knew better now.
I pulled a pair of rubber gloves onto my hands and began tearing the room apart.
I checked the nightstands, the luggage racks, and behind the oil paintings on the wall. For an hour, I found nothing out of the ordinary—just high-end makeup, designer receipts, and expensive jewelry I had bought for her.
Then, I turned my attention to her vanity table.
I pulled out the drawers one by one, feeling along the underside of the mahogany wood. Near the bottom drawer, my fingers caught on a small, plastic latch.
It was a hidden false bottom.
I pressed the latch, and the wooden panel popped upward, revealing a flat, black leather pouch tucked into the structure of the furniture.
My heart pounded as I pulled the pouch out and unzipped it onto the bed.
Inside were three different passports. Each one bore Vanessa’s photograph, but every single one listed a completely different name, nationality, and date of birth: Vanessa Reed, Veronica Vance, and Victoria Sterling.
Beneath the passports lay two burner smartphones, three encrypted USB thumb drives, and a thick stack of printed financial documents.
I picked up the top document and scanned the header.
It was a detailed copy of my late wife’s primary life insurance policy, alongside a complete breakdown of my personal investment portfolio, net worth statements, and the official trust fund accounts setup for Emma and Olivia.
Tucked right behind my financial ledger was a draft copy of our upcoming prenuptial agreement.
Except it wasn't the document my lawyer had prepared.
May you like
Someone had altered the secondary pages, adding a hidden clause that transferred total administrative control of my children’s inheritance to Vanessa in the event of my death or incapacitation.
Vanessa hadn't fallen in love with me. She had targeted me.
