Chapter 14 - The Woman Before Me
Evelyn had used Daniel's sleeping hand to unlock his phone.
She admitted it after Ortiz confronted her.
That sentence alone could have ended my ability to be surprised by her.
It didn't.
Because Maya found one more name in the old phone records.
Megan Price.
Daniel's former fiancee.
I knew almost nothing about her. Daniel had once said they were "wrong for each other" and left it there.
Maya looked at me carefully.
"Evelyn called Megan seventeen times the month before their engagement ended. Victor called her six times."
I felt a cold little click in my mind.
Pattern.
I found Megan online and sent one message: I married Daniel Cole. I think Evelyn and Victor Hale may have done something to you. I'm sorry to contact you out of nowhere. If I'm wrong, ignore me.
She called ten minutes later.
"You're not wrong," she said.
We met at a coffee shop with Ortiz present.
Megan was calm until I said the word five hundred.
Then her hand shook.
"Mine was a bracelet," she said. "Evelyn said I stole her mother's diamond bracelet. She found it in my overnight bag in front of Daniel."
My stomach twisted.
"Did he believe her?"
"He said he didn't know what to believe."
Of course he did.
Megan gave a sad smile. "That was enough."
Daniel, sitting at the end of the table, looked destroyed.
"Megan, I am so sorry."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"I don't need your apology anymore. I needed your courage eight years ago."
He nodded.
No defense.
No excuses.
Megan turned back to Ortiz.
"Victor called me after I left. He said if I told Daniel the bracelet was planted, he would release photos that made it look like I was having an affair with my boss. Fake photos. I didn't know that then. I panicked and moved."
"Do you still have the voicemail?" Ortiz asked.
Megan took out an old phone.
"I kept everything."
The voicemail was ugly and simple.
Victor's voice: Walk away from Daniel. Let his mother win. Or I ruin you in public.
Ortiz's eyes sharpened.
Pattern became evidence.
Then Megan added one detail nobody expected.
"Victor wasn't protecting Evelyn. He hated her. He told me that eventually he'd make her take the fall for all of it."
I thought of the staged accounts, the fake companies, the money trails pointing in every direction.
"So Evelyn was never his partner," I said. "She was another future defendant."
Megan nodded.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Evelyn.
I'LL WEAR A WIRE.
I looked at Ortiz.
She read it over my shoulder.
Then her phone rang.
Victor had just contacted Evelyn.
He wanted to meet that night.
Alone.
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