Chapter 4 - The Grieving Husband
By evening, Richard was on television.
The hospital room lights were off. Evelyn and I watched a local news report on mute while a sheriff's department spokesperson stood outside the private airfield.
Then Richard appeared.
He looked shattered.
He was wearing the navy sweater I bought him on our anniversary.
"My wife was upset during the flight," he told reporters. "She moved too close to the open door before I could stop her. I tried to grab her."
I felt sick.
He covered his face.
"She's pregnant. Please, if anyone has seen her..."
The performance was perfect.
Almost.
"He said you were upset," Evelyn murmured.
"He needs a story that explains why I went near the door."
Marcus Bell arrived after midnight. He was sixty-two, broad-shouldered, gray-haired, and still moved like a man who assumed every room contained a weapon.
He set a tablet on my bed.
"The pilot says he never saw the push."
"Convenient."
"Maybe. But he did see Richard close the door afterward and tell him to return to the airfield."
"Did Richard ask him to search?"
Marcus looked at me.
"No."
That mattered.
A husband who watched his pregnant wife fall accidentally would demand circles, calls, rescue crews—anything.
Richard had gone home.
Marcus tapped the screen.
"Also, someone accessed your estate planning portal forty-three minutes after the helicopter landed."
My skin went cold.
"From where?"
"Your house."
Evelyn and I exchanged a look.
Richard had tried to kill me.
Then, before the police even finished asking questions, he had checked what he thought he was about to inherit.
Marcus swiped to another screen.
"There is one more thing."
A security image appeared.
Richard was entering my home office with another person.
A woman.
May you like
I knew her immediately.
My chief financial officer.
