Chapter 4 - THE OTHER WOMANNatalie didn’t make her flight.
She checked in online.
She arrived at Denver International Airport.
She passed security.
Then, fifteen minutes before boarding, she disappeared from the gate.
For two days, police couldn’t find her.
Michael remained in custody temporarily while prosecutors reviewed evidence.
He had stopped answering questions.
His attorney, Grant Ellis, issued a statement calling the situation “a tragic misunderstanding fueled by trauma and premature assumptions.”
A tragic misunderstanding.
Apparently shoving your pregnant wife down a mountain needed better branding.
Daniel remained in NICU, growing stronger by the day.
I spent hours beside his incubator, learning how to change a diaper through access ports and how to hold him against my chest without disturbing the monitors.
He was tiny.
But fierce.
Every time I looked at him, Michael’s motive became harder to understand.
How could a man plan to kill his own child?
Detective Harris provided one possible answer.
“Michael purchased a second life-insurance policy.”
I was holding Daniel when she told me.
“On me?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Two million.”
My breath caught.
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“I didn’t authorize that.”
“You signed an application.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Harris showed me a copy.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
It looked almost perfect.
Almost.
The loop in the C was wrong.
My handwriting had been copied.
“This is fraud.”
“Likely.”
“Who sold it?”
“A broker named Spencer Cole.”
“Do I know him?”
“He attended college with Michael.”
Of course.
“How much was Michael expecting if I died?”
“Between both policies, approximately three and a half million dollars.”
“And the trust?”
“He may have assumed he could gain control through the documents you signed.”
I thought about the pages Michael placed before me.
“What were those?”
“Forensics are still working on it.”
Then Harris said something worse.
“One document appears to have been a durable financial power of attorney.”
“I gave him power of attorney?”
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
“Because the signature page was presented separately from the full document.”
My stomach twisted.
He had covered parts of the pages with other paperwork while asking me to sign tabbed lines.
I remembered him joking.
This is why married people need each other. Nobody wants to read twenty pages of legal nonsense.
He hadn’t needed me to read.
He needed my signature.
By the fifth day, local news had picked up the story.
PREGNANT WOMAN SURVIVES MOUNTAIN FALL; HUSBAND QUESTIONED.
The hospital moved me under a private patient designation.
Reporters waited outside.
So did strangers carrying flowers.
Michael’s mother called Rachel seventeen times.
I refused to speak to her.
Then she left a voicemail.
Rachel played it against my wishes.
“Claire, sweetheart, whatever happened, please don’t destroy Michael’s life over something you may not remember clearly. He loves you. Pregnancy hormones and trauma can make everything confusing. We need to discuss this privately, as a family.”
I listened twice.
Not because I doubted myself.
Because I wanted to remember exactly how casually she tried to erase what happened.
Rachel deleted it afterward.
“She’s lucky I don’t answer.”
“Save it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m done deleting evidence.”
The words surprised even me.
Before the mountain, I avoided confrontation.
Michael called me “the peacemaker.”
What he actually meant was that I had been trained to absorb discomfort so other people could stay comfortable.
Not anymore.
On Friday morning, Detective Lee entered carrying coffee.
“We found Natalie.”
I almost dropped my cup.
“Where?”
“A motel outside Pueblo.”
“Did she run?”
“She says she panicked.”
“Is she talking?”
Lee glanced toward Harris.
“Some.”
Natalie claimed Michael had called her after the fall.
She admitted they were having an affair.
She denied knowing he planned to hurt me.
“She says his exact words were, ‘It happened. Claire fell.’”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“We know.”
“She’s lying.”
“Probably about something.”
“What?”
“That’s what we’re finding out.”
Natalie told police Michael had been unhappy for years.
He allegedly said I controlled him through money.
That I would ruin him financially if he asked for divorce.
None of it was true.
I would have given him a divorce.
I probably would have let him take half the furniture.
Instead, he chose attempted murder because somewhere along the way, Michael decided freedom wasn’t enough.
He wanted profit.
But Natalie’s biggest revelation involved his business.
Bennett Strategic Group wasn’t expanding.
It was collapsing.
Michael had borrowed heavily.
Client contracts had been falsified to secure credit.
He owed private investors nearly two million dollars.
One lender had threatened legal action.
Michael needed cash.
Fast.
“And Natalie knew?” I asked.
“She handled operations.”
“So yes.”
“Likely.”
“Was she involved?”
“Potentially.”
Lee explained that the company’s internal accounts showed transfers to an LLC named Summit Ridge Consulting.
The LLC belonged to Natalie.
Over eighteen months, nearly six hundred thousand dollars had been moved through it.
I stared at him.
“They were stealing from the company.”
“We’re investigating.”
“Then he needed my insurance to cover the losses.”
“That’s one theory.”
“And Natalie fled because she knew.”
“Also possible.”
I looked toward Daniel sleeping beside me.
“Bring her here.”
Lee blinked.
“What?”
“I want to see her.”
“That isn’t advisable.”
“Why?”
“Because she may become a cooperating witness.”
“I don’t care.”
“Claire—”
“She sat at my baby shower.”
The memory had haunted me for days.
Natalie tying blue ribbons around gifts.
Natalie touching my stomach.
Natalie telling me Michael would be a wonderful father.
“I want to look at her face.”
Police refused.
Probably wisely.
But I got my chance sooner than expected.
Two days later, I was discharged.
Daniel needed at least another week in NICU, so Rachel rented a furnished apartment near the hospital for us.
Police escorted me through a restricted exit.
I was being wheeled toward Rachel’s car when shouting erupted near the entrance.
Reporters surged toward someone.
Natalie.
Detectives were bringing her into the building for a recorded interview.
Her head turned.
Our eyes met across the lobby.
Natalie stopped walking.
For the first time, she looked afraid of me.
I stood from the wheelchair despite the pain.
A detective tried to guide her away.
“Natalie!”
She flinched.
Everyone went quiet.
I didn’t scream.
I didn’t curse.
I only asked one question.
“Did you know he was going to kill my baby?”
Her face collapsed.
And in that instant, I knew.
She knew something.
Maybe not everything.
But something.
She started crying.
Then she said five words that changed the investigation.
“I told him not there.”
Detective Harris froze.
I froze.
Natalie realized what she had admitted.
She covered her mouth.
Too late.
Harris turned toward her.
“Not where, Natalie?”
Natalie shook her head violently.
Her attorney pushed through the crowd.
“No more questions.”
But I had already heard enough.
Michael had discussed killing me before we ever drove up that mountain.
May you like
Natalie hadn’t merely known after the fact.
She had known before.
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