Chapter 4 - The Best Friend’s SecretMadeline came to see me that afternoon.
I almost laughed when the nurse said her name.
“Send her in.”
Sophie stood immediately.
“Claire.”
“I want to hear what she says.”
Madeline entered wearing oversized sunglasses and a cream sweater despite the August heat.
Her injured arm was wrapped in a neat white bandage.
Three stitches.
I looked down at my own bruised legs.
She slowly removed her glasses.
Her eyes were red.
“Claire.”
“Madeline.”
She began crying before she reached the bed.
“I am so sorry.”
“For which part?”
She froze.
“The accident.”
“Of course.”
“I keep seeing it.”
“So do I.”
She glanced at Sophie.
“Could Claire and I have a minute?”
“No,” Sophie said.
I lifted one hand.
“It’s okay.”
Sophie reluctantly stepped into the hall.
I made sure the voice recorder on my phone was running beneath the blanket.
Madeline sat.
“I know what you must think.”
“I doubt it.”
“That Ethan chose me.”
“He did.”
“He panicked.”
“He assessed two injured women and made a decision.”
“I couldn’t breathe.”
“You had a scratch.”
“That’s not fair.”
I almost smiled.
“Not fair?”
Her expression changed.
For the first time, I saw irritation underneath the tears.
“I came because I care about you.”
“No, you came because you’re scared.”
Her face went blank.
“Why would I be scared?”
“Nathan’s missing.”
Nothing.
Not a blink.
But the hand on her lap curled into a fist.
I continued.
“Police found his car.”
“I heard.”
“They found your messages.”
Her lips parted slightly.
“What messages?”
I watched her.
If she truly didn’t know, she would have asked what I was talking about.
Instead she needed to know what evidence I had.
The same mistake Ethan made.
I leaned back.
“Tell me about Route 9.”
“It was Ethan’s idea.”
“What was?”
“Changing routes.”
“Why?”
She hesitated.
“He wanted photographs.”
Same explanation.
They had rehearsed it.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“Ethan said the same thing.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Then why didn’t he tell our photographer?”
Madeline’s eyes flickered.
I was bluffing.
I had no idea whether Ethan had told the photographer.
She didn’t know that.
“Maybe he forgot.”
“Why did you put on your seat belt thirty seconds before the crash?”
The blood drained from her face.
“I always wear one.”
“No, you don’t.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I told you twice to buckle it.”
She stood.
“You’re drugged and traumatized.”
There it was again.
Make Claire doubt herself.
“I think you should leave.”
Madeline grabbed her purse.
At the door, she turned.
“Ethan loves you.”
I stared at her.
“You almost sounded disappointed.”
She left.
Thirty minutes later, Detective Ramirez returned.
I gave her the recording.
She listened.
“That seat-belt detail is interesting.”
“There’s more.”
I told her about the photographer bluff.
Ramirez smiled faintly.
“She didn’t deny Ethan failed to inform the photographer.”
“No.”
She closed the audio file.
“We found Nathan.”
My heart lurched.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Rhode Island.”
“Why was he hiding?”
“He claims someone is trying to kill him.”
The story Nathan gave police was stranger than I expected.
According to him, Ethan approached him six months earlier about creating an emergency financial plan to save Caldwell Dynamics.
Ethan needed access to my shares.
Nathan refused to help forge documents.
Madeline, however, was already involved.
Ethan and Madeline had been having an affair for almost two years.
I thought that revelation would destroy me.
Instead, I felt numb.
Maybe because attempted murder had changed the scale of betrayal.
An affair almost seemed ordinary.
Nathan said Ethan originally planned to convince me to merge Bennett Medical assets voluntarily after our marriage.
When I repeatedly refused, their plan changed.
A trust amendment appeared.
Then a life-insurance policy.
Then Ethan began asking hypothetical questions about what happened to inherited assets if a spouse died before the marriage ceremony.
Nathan became suspicious.
He started saving messages.
But according to Detective Ramirez, Nathan denied causing the crash.
“Then why was his SUV there?”
“He says Ethan borrowed it.”
My pulse increased.
“Ethan?”
“Nathan says Ethan claimed his own car was being serviced.”
“But Ethan was behind us.”
“In another vehicle.”
“So who was driving Nathan’s Range Rover?”
“That’s what we’re determining.”
I thought about Madeline.
She had been inside the limousine.
Ethan was behind us.
Someone else had to be driving.
“Who?”
Ramirez didn’t answer.
Instead she showed me a photograph.
It had been recovered from Nathan’s prepaid phone.
Ethan and Madeline stood outside a lakeside cabin.
The timestamp was six weeks earlier.
They were kissing.
Underneath was a message from Ethan to Nathan.
After Saturday, Maddie and I are done pretending.
I stared at the photo.
Something inside me finally broke.
Not because he had cheated.
Because I suddenly remembered our wedding invitations.
My name next to his.
The vows I had written.
The house we had chosen.
The children we had discussed.
While I was planning our marriage, Ethan was planning a life after my funeral.
“How stupid was I?” I whispered.
Ramirez’s answer came immediately.
“Trusting someone isn’t stupidity.”
I wiped my eyes.
“When can I go home?”
“Tomorrow, probably.”
“My home with Ethan?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“I don’t intend to stay there.”
She nodded.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“At 10:17 this morning, someone entered your house.”
“My house?”
“Your alarm company logged a disarm code.”
“Ethan’s code?”
“No.”
I waited.
“Madeline’s.”
My skin prickled.
“What was she doing there?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Sophie entered holding a coffee.
Ramirez looked toward her.
“Sophie, does Claire keep a safe?”
Sophie frowned.
“In the study.”
My stomach dropped.
The safe contained my father’s original corporate certificates.
My grandmother’s jewelry.
And something Ethan might not even know existed.
A handwritten amendment to my father’s estate plan naming me sole voting controller of the Bennett family shares.
If someone destroyed that document, Ethan could challenge my control using the revised trust.
I threw back the blanket.
Pain shot through my leg.
“Claire!”
“I’m going home.”
Ramirez stopped me.
“Police are already there.”
“Then tell them to open the safe.”
She made the call.
We waited.
Five minutes later, her expression changed.
“What?”
She ended the call.
“The safe is open.”
My heart sank.
“Is the estate document gone?”
Ramirez looked at me.
“The document is still there.”
Relief came too quickly.
“Then what did she take?”
Ramirez’s eyes hardened.
“According to the officer, nothing.”
I stared at her.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No.”
Then she added:
“But someone left something inside.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Of what?”
Ramirez turned her phone toward me.
The photograph showed me leaving my father’s funeral three years earlier.
Someone had circled my face in red ink.
On the back were four handwritten words.
HE SHOULD HAVE CHOSEN ME.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
Madeline’s.
And suddenly I understood.
This wasn’t just about money.
May you like
She hated me.
Maybe she always had.
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