Chapter 7
I had a two-million-dollar life insurance policy.
I knew that.
Daniel and I bought policies after we married.
Nothing unusual.
At least I thought nothing was unusual.
Vanessa sent me photographs from the blue folder.
The first page looked familiar.
My name.
Date of birth.
Policy number.
Beneficiary:
Daniel Carter.
Expected.
Then came a second policy.
Five million dollars.
Opened eleven months earlier.
My signature at the bottom.
I had never seen it.
Dad read over my shoulder.
“Seven million?”
My mouth went dry.
Vanessa sent another photograph.
A third policy application.
Three million.
Pending medical review.
Total potential coverage:
Ten million dollars.
Dad sat down.
“Call the police.”
“I am.”
Claire joined the conversation first.
Then the detective.
Vanessa refused to give her location.
The detective tried to convince her.
She refused again.
“I’m not coming in until Daniel is in custody.”
The detective said, “Ms. Lane, we can protect you.”
“You didn’t see his face last night.”
“What happened?”
Silence.
Then Vanessa finally told us.
After leaving the condo, she drove toward her sister’s apartment.
Halfway there, she noticed Daniel’s SUV behind her.
At first she thought it was coincidence.
Then she changed streets.
He followed.
She entered a gas station.
Daniel parked across the street.
She waited.
He waited.
So Vanessa called a friend.
The friend booked the motel room using her own name.
Vanessa abandoned her car near Union Station, took a taxi, switched taxis twice, and shut off her phone.
“Why didn’t you call police immediately?” the detective asked.
“Because I didn’t know which documents were real.”
“What changed?”
“I read the folder.”
Her voice shook.
“I realized Daniel had taken out life insurance on Emily.”
I looked at Dad.
His face had gone gray.
The detective asked, “Why did that make you believe you were in danger?”
Another silence.
Then Vanessa said, “Because of what he told me about Emily.”
My skin prickled.
“What did he tell you?”
Vanessa began crying.
“He told me you were sick.”
“What?”
“He said you had a heart condition.”
“I don’t.”
“I know.”
Dad stood.
Vanessa continued.
“He said you had episodes where you fainted. He told me doctors were worried about an electrical problem with your heart.”
My hands started shaking.
Daniel had invented a medical condition.
Why?
Claire asked, “Did he ever discuss her dying?”
The silence that followed felt endless.
Then Vanessa whispered, “Yes.”
Dad slammed both hands on the table.
“What did he say?”
“He said he felt guilty because part of him would be relieved.”
I felt cold.
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
“Why didn’t you think that was strange?”
“I thought you were already his ex-wife.”
“That doesn’t make it normal.”
“I know.”
Vanessa was sobbing now.
“He said your condition could kill you suddenly. He said he was afraid people would blame him if something happened because the divorce had been ugly.”
The detective asked, “Did he ever mention harming Mrs. Carter?”
“No.”
“Poisoning her?”
“No.”
“Tampering with medication?”
“No.”
I almost laughed.
Medication.
I didn’t take any.
Then a memory surfaced.
My vitamins.
Daniel had become strangely obsessed with vitamins six months earlier.
He bought me a daily supplement pack.
“For fertility,” he said.
I stopped breathing.
Dad noticed.
“What?”
I stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
“The vitamins.”
We ran upstairs.
The packets were in my bathroom.
Thirty small sealed envelopes.
One for each day.
Daniel ordered them online.
At least that was what he told me.
I had been taking them almost every morning.
I hadn’t taken one since yesterday because my entire life had collapsed before breakfast.
Dad stared at the box.
“Don’t touch them.”
We called the detective.
Within an hour, officers came to collect them.
I felt ridiculous.
Maybe they were normal vitamins.
Maybe fear had turned every object in my house into evidence.
But then I remembered something.
The dizziness.
Three months earlier, I had nearly fainted in the grocery store.
Daniel insisted I had skipped breakfast.
Another time, I woke in the night with my heart racing.
He told me it was stress.
In July, I actually passed out in the shower.
Daniel found me on the bathroom floor.
He wanted to take me to the emergency room.
I refused because after ten minutes, I felt fine.
He had seemed worried.
Or maybe he had been checking whether something worked.
The thought made me vomit.
Dad held my hair while I knelt over the toilet.
“I slept beside him.”
“I know.”
“I let him bring me food.”
Dad’s voice cracked.
“Emily.”
“I wanted a baby with him.”
That was what destroyed me.
Not Vanessa.
Not the condo.
Not even the money.
I had spent a year imagining a child with Daniel’s eyes.
I had cried over negative pregnancy tests.
He comforted me while possibly preparing for my death.
My phone rang.
Michael.
I almost didn’t answer.
Then I did.
“What?”
“Police are at Mom’s.”
“Why?”
“They’re asking about Daniel.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I can’t help.”
“Emily, wait.”
“What?”
“I found something.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m tired of that sentence.”
“I know.”
“What did you find?”
“An email.”
“What email?”
“Daniel sent it to me last year.”
Michael sounded sick.
“I thought it was a joke.”
My pulse quickened.
“What did it say?”
“He asked whether Mom still had Dad’s old prescription bottles.”
Daniel’s father died six years ago.
Heart failure.
He had taken several medications.
“Why would Daniel want those?”
“He said he wanted to dispose of them because Mom was keeping too much old stuff.”
“When was this?”
“Last November.”
Eleven months.
The same month the five-million-dollar policy opened.
“What happened?”
“I told him I didn’t know.”
“Did he ask Susan?”
“I don’t know.”
Dad took the phone.
“Michael, do you know where your father’s old medication went?”
A pause.
“No.”
“Find out.”
Michael called back twenty minutes later.
Susan didn’t know either.
She thought she had thrown everything away years ago.
But she wasn’t sure.
Claire told me not to jump to conclusions.
The detective said the same.
“We need evidence.”
Evidence.
I wanted facts.
Something solid.
Something that would turn the impossible into a sentence I could understand.
At four that afternoon, we got the first laboratory information.
Not from my vitamins.
Those would take longer.
From the medical records connected to the insurance policy.
The insurer had a health questionnaire.
According to it, I reported intermittent fainting.
Heart palpitations.
Family history of sudden cardiac death.
All false.
It also said I had been evaluated at a private clinic.
The clinic existed.
I had never been there.
Claire called them with my authorization.
They had a chart under my name.
Two visits.
Both eleven months earlier.
Both listed me as a telehealth patient.
The clinic had copies of my ID.
They had lab results.
They had an electrocardiogram.
Not mine.
I felt like someone had created a second Emily.
One made of documents.
Passwords.
Signatures.
Medical records.
A woman who looked perfect for life insurance.
A woman who might die suddenly without creating immediate suspicion.
Dad paced the living room.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Dad.”
“I mean it.”
“Then he wins.”
Dad stopped.
I had never seen him cry from anger before.
“I should have hit him harder.”
“No.”
“I should have known.”
“No.”
“Emily—”
“You saw him holding Vanessa’s hand and called me immediately. You did exactly what everyone else should have done.”
Dad sank into a chair.
My phone buzzed again.
Vanessa.
The message contained an address.
Then:
I’M LEAVING THE MOTEL.
The detective called her instantly.
No answer.
Another text came.
NOT MY LOCATION. LOOK AT THE ADDRESS IN THE PHOTO.
I opened the image again.
One insurance document had a handwritten note along the margin.
A street address in Evanston.
The detective searched it.
A small rental house.
Leaseholder:
David Collins.
No immediate connection to Daniel.
Then Michael called.
His voice was shaking.
“Emily.”
“What?”
“David Collins was my dad’s middle name and Mom’s maiden name.”
I stared at the phone.
Daniel had created another identity.
Police obtained information quickly after that.
Utilities at the Evanston house were paid through Carter Residential Solutions.
A vehicle registered through the company had received parking tickets there.
Daniel had access.
The detective told me to stay home.
I listened this time.
Two hours later, police entered the Evanston property.
Daniel wasn’t there.
But they found computers.
Financial records.
Fake IDs.
Prescription bottles.
And photographs.
Not digital photographs.
Printed ones.
Pictures of me.
Leaving work.
Walking into the grocery store.
Jogging near our neighborhood.
Sitting in a restaurant with Dad.
Sleeping.
That one had been taken in my own bedroom.
My stomach turned when the detective described it.
There were notes beside some photographs.
Dates.
Times.
My routines.
My coffee order.
My gym schedule.
The days Dad usually visited.
Daniel had been tracking my life while living it beside me.
Then the detective found a printed calendar.
One date was circled.
This coming Saturday.
Three days away.
Beside it, Daniel had written only two words.
LAKE HOUSE.
Dad read the message from the detective.
His face changed.
Our lake house.
Not ours.
His.
A small cabin in Wisconsin that had belonged to Mom’s family.
Daniel had asked me to go there this weekend.
He said we needed time away.
No phones.
No work.
Just us.
I had almost said yes.
My knees weakened.
Dad caught me.
The detective called.
“Emily.”
“Yes?”
“Did Mr. Carter ask you to go to Wisconsin this weekend?”
“Yes.”
“Do not go.”
“I won’t.”
“We’re attempting to locate him now.”
I stared out the window.
“What did he plan to do?”
“We don’t know.”
But we both knew what I was thinking.
Seven million dollars in active life insurance.
A fake heart condition.
Old heart medication.
A private cabin.
No neighbors close enough to hear anything.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
The lake house.
Taken recently.
Then a message.
I CAN EXPLAIN EVERYTHING.
Daniel.
I typed nothing.
Another message.
YOU’RE LETTING VANESSA TURN YOU AGAINST ME.
Then:
SHE DOESN’T KNOW THE WHOLE STORY.
My fingers shook.
The next message made my blood freeze.
YOU THINK SATURDAY WAS ABOUT HURTING YOU.
IT WASN’T.
I stared at the screen.
May you like
A final text appeared.
SATURDAY WAS WHEN I WAS GOING TO TELL YOU WHO VANESSA REALLY IS.
