Chapter 5 - The Woman With the Stamp
Daniel met me the next morning in a coffee shop twenty minutes from school.
He pushed a printed license record across the table.
Nora Bell was a commissioned notary in Arizona.
She was also Angela’s first cousin.
“She notarized your signature,” Daniel said.
“Without seeing me.”
“Looks that way.”
“That’s a crime.”
“Yes.”
I stared through the window at people carrying coffee into an ordinary Thursday.
“My best friend helped my husband forge documents against me.”
Daniel did not soften it.
“Yes.”
He handed me another photograph.
David and Angela were kissing outside the resort parking garage.
Not a confused kiss. Not a mistake.
Comfortable.
Practiced.
I put the photo face down.
“How long?”
“I’m still working on that.”
He slid a bank record toward me.
David had been paying Angela’s mortgage for twenty-two months through a consulting company called Red Oak Project Services.
Red Oak had no employees.
Its mailing address was a UPS box.
“How much?”
“Just under ninety thousand.”
My laugh came out wrong.
“He told me we couldn’t afford to replace the roof last year.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, then wrote something on a napkin.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“A source at the resort.”
He turned the napkin.
Suite 814.
“David and Angela’s room?”
“Yes. But another room was booked under Martin Cole.”
“What room?”
“816.”
Next door.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“The connecting-door logs show both rooms were opened from inside fourteen times.”
I felt sick.
Then he gave me the worst part.
“Rebecca, somebody else stayed in 816 with Cole for three nights.”
“Who?”
“A seventeen-year-old boy named Tyler Mason.”
I knew that name.
Tyler was Angela’s son.
May you like
My godson.
And according to Daniel, David had paid every dollar of Tyler’s private-school tuition since seventh grade.
