Chapter 3 - The Woman in MiamiBy noon, Brandon had called me twenty-seven times.
I answered none of them.
At 12:43, my attorney, Rachel Cole, called instead.
“You sitting down?”
“I am now.”
I was in a suite at the Fairmont, watching rain streak the windows.
Rachel had represented my father’s manufacturing company for years before opening her own firm. At sixty-one, she had the calm voice of a kindergarten teacher and the instincts of a shark.
“Brandon hired Simon Vale.”
I knew the name.
Every wealthy man going through an ugly divorce knew the name.
Simon specialized in making wives disappear financially.
“He moved quickly.”
“He’s scared.”
“Of the divorce?”
“Of discovery.”
I sat straighter.
“What did you find?”
Rachel hesitated.
That was unusual.
“More than the $180,000.”
“How much more?”
“Janelle, between eighteen months ago and today, approximately $1.4 million moved through accounts connected to Mercer Strategic Holdings.”
My stomach tightened.
Brandon’s consulting company had always been his kingdom.
I owned no formal share.
He frequently reminded me of that whenever discussing money.
“Where did it go?”
“We’re tracing it.”
“To Sabrina?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
“Enough to buy her a condo in Miami.”
I closed my eyes.
The room went very still.
“Cash?”
“Mostly through an LLC.”
“Of course.”
“There’s more.”
There always was.
Rachel sent me an email.
I opened the attachment.
The first page showed a Florida corporation.
BLUE HERON LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT LLC.
Registered agent: Sabrina Lowe.
My husband had transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars into it.
Then I saw the address.
I knew it.
Six months earlier, Brandon had taken me to Miami for what he called a “reconnection weekend.”
We stayed at the Fontainebleau.
On Saturday morning, he disappeared for three hours because a client supposedly needed him.
That afternoon, we drove through Coconut Grove.
As we passed a modern white condominium building, Brandon glanced toward it.
Just once.
But I remembered.
“That bastard.”
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said.
I almost laughed.
“Stop apologizing for things Brandon did.”
“Fair.”
“What else?”
“Sabrina’s lease on a Range Rover appears to be paid through another company tied to Brandon.”
I stared at the screen.
“What does this mean for me?”
“Potential dissipation of marital assets.”
“Can we freeze anything?”
“We can seek restraints.”
“Do it.”
“Already drafting.”
That was why I hired Rachel.
Then she said something that changed the direction of everything.
“Janelle, did Brandon ever ask you to guarantee loans for Mercer Strategic?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Sign refinancing documents?”
“No.”
“Authorize the house as collateral?”
I sat completely still.
“He couldn’t.”
“Correct.”
“Why are you asking?”
Rachel was silent for a beat.
“Because we found a loan application.”
My mouth went dry.
“Using the house?”
“Using the address. It appears Brandon represented that he owned the property.”
I stood so quickly my chair rolled backward.
“He what?”
“The loan didn’t close.”
“Why?”
“Title verification.”
I almost laughed from pure disbelief.
“So somebody discovered he didn’t own it.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Eight days ago.”
Eight days.
Before Miami.
Before Sabrina.
Before the missing money.
Before Brandon shoved me.
“He knew,” I whispered.
“What?”
“He knew the house wasn’t his.”
Rachel paused.
“Yes.”
I walked toward the window.
Suddenly, the argument at the top of the stairs replayed differently.
Brandon’s fury hadn’t erupted simply because I confronted him about Sabrina.
He was already panicking.
He had tried to leverage the property.
Title records stopped him.
He learned it belonged solely to my trust.
And then I started asking questions about missing money.
“How large was the loan?”
“Four million.”
My knees weakened.
“For what?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I stared at the rain.
“Find out.”
“I intend to.”
“No, Rachel.”
My voice changed.
“Find out everything.”
That evening, someone knocked on my hotel-room door.
I checked through the peephole.
Sabrina Lowe stood outside.
For several seconds, I wondered whether stress had finally made me hallucinate.
She was younger than her photographs.
Dark hair, cream coat, enormous sunglasses even though it was raining.
I opened the door but kept the security latch engaged.
“What are you doing here?”
She removed the glasses.
Her eyes were red.
That surprised me.
“I need to talk to you.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Brandon doesn’t know I’m here.”
That got my attention.
“You have five minutes.”
I did not invite her inside.
She stood in the hallway like a woman who had rehearsed a speech and forgotten the words.
“Brandon said you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“About us.”
“I know now.”
“He said your marriage was finished years ago.”
“Convenient.”
“He said you stayed together for appearances.”
“Also convenient.”
“He told me the house was his.”
I nearly smiled.
“There seems to be an epidemic of that belief.”
Sabrina looked confused.
“He said he was going to divorce you after the acquisition closed.”
“What acquisition?”
She froze.
There it was.
“What acquisition, Sabrina?”
“I shouldn’t have come.”
She turned.
I opened the door farther.
“Wait.”
She stopped.
“You came here because something scared you.”
Her shoulders tightened.
“What did Brandon do?”
She looked toward both ends of the corridor.
Then back at me.
“He told me yesterday that you were unstable.”
I laughed once.
“Of course.”
“He said you injured yourself on purpose.”
My humor vanished.
“He said what?”
“He said you threw yourself down the stairs because you found out about me.”
For several seconds, I heard nothing but the hum of the hotel hallway.
That was fast.
Less than twenty-four hours and Brandon had already built his alternate reality.
“Why didn’t you believe him?”
Sabrina’s eyes filled.
“Because he said something else.”
“What?”
“He said if you caused trouble, he knew how to make people believe you were crazy.”
A chill moved across my skin.
“What exactly did he say?”
She swallowed.
“He said he’d been preparing for it for years.”
I stopped breathing.
Sabrina reached into her purse.
“I found these in his Miami apartment.”
“His apartment?”
“He has one too. Separate from mine.”
She handed me a small envelope.
Inside were photocopies.
Medical forms.
Insurance paperwork.
Notes.
My name appeared repeatedly.
Emotional instability.
Memory lapses.
Possible medication misuse.
Paranoid episodes.
I stared at the pages.
“These are fake.”
“I thought so.”
“How?”
“I’m a nurse.”
That was information Brandon had neglected to mention.
“I worked in neurology before I started consulting in medical sales,” Sabrina continued. “Half these terms don’t even make sense together.”
“Why would he have them?”
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Or at least I was beginning to.
For years Brandon had joked about my memory.
At dinners, he would say, “Janelle forgets everything.”
If I contradicted him, he would laugh.
“See? She doesn’t even remember.”
When I lost my keys, he made it a story.
When I forgot an appointment, he mentioned dementia.
When I remembered something differently from him, I was “confused.”
I had thought it was arrogance.
Maybe it was preparation.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked.
Sabrina looked ashamed.
“Because three nights ago I overheard him talking to Simon.”
“Simon Vale?”
She nodded.
“He said once the deal went through, he could get control of everything.”
“What everything?”
“He didn’t say.”
My phone rang.
Rachel.
I answered.
“Janelle, we found the reason for the four-million-dollar loan.”
I looked at Sabrina.
“Tell me.”
“Brandon’s company is in serious trouble.”
“How serious?”
“Potentially insolvent.”
My pulse slowed rather than quickened.
That happened sometimes when the truth became too large.
Everything inside me went cold.
“How long?”
“Possibly a year.”
“And the loan?”
“He appears to have needed the house as collateral to keep the company alive long enough to complete a merger.”
“What merger?”
Rachel exhaled.
“A deal worth roughly ninety million dollars.”
Sabrina covered her mouth.
I understood immediately.
Brandon had been living two lives.
One with me.
One with Sabrina.
And apparently a third with his investors.
The house was not just where he slept.
It was the asset he had planned to use as a life raft.
Except it was never his.
“Rachel?”
“Yes?”
“Move the listing forward.”
“Janelle—”
“I want it active as soon as legally possible.”
Sabrina stared at me.
“Brandon will lose his mind.”
I looked down at the fake medical records carrying my name.
“No,” I said.
“He already has.”
Then my phone buzzed with a new message.
From Brandon.
A photograph.
It showed him standing in our living room with April, Doris, and Simon Vale.
Beneath it were seven words.
Come home. We need to discuss your condition.
I read the sentence twice.
Then I forwarded it to Rachel.
She called immediately.
“Do not go there alone.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
I looked at Sabrina.
She had finally started crying.
“I think I made a terrible mistake.”
“So did I.”
She looked at me.
May you like
I picked up the documents.
“The difference is what we do next.”
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