Chapter 10 - SOPHIA
Sophia had been real.
That was the first thing Detective Harris made clear.
She wasn’t another stolen identity.
She had worked in medical sales.
She lived forty minutes away.
She had dated Ryan for nearly a year.
And eight months ago, she drove off a rural road and hit a tree.
Police ruled it an accident.
Rain.
Poor visibility.
No witnesses.
No suspicious evidence at the time.
“Did Ryan have insurance on her?” I asked.
Harris didn’t answer immediately.
My stomach dropped.
“He did.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
“Did he collect?”
“Yes.”
Megan whispered, “Oh my God.”
The room went silent.
Harris continued.
“That doesn’t prove homicide.”
“No,” I said. “It just proves the universe really loves paying Ryan when women around him die.”
Harris didn’t smile.
Neither did I.
Sophia’s case was reopened.
Her car had been destroyed months earlier.
But investigators still had photographs.
Maintenance records.
Phone data.
Ryan had claimed he was home the night Sophia died.
His phone records showed otherwise.
He had been near the road where she crashed less than two hours earlier.
For the first time, the case stopped being mainly about fraud.
Detectives from another division joined.
Then state investigators.
Then federal agents because money had crossed international borders.
Ryan’s little private kingdom was collapsing.
And he knew it.
He asked to speak with me.
I refused.
Then he sent a letter through his attorney.
I almost threw it away.
Monica stopped me.
“Let me read it first.”
She scanned it.
Her expression sharpened.
“What?”
“He wants to make a deal.”
“With me?”
“He says he’ll tell you where the money is.”
“In exchange for what?”
“You publicly say you believe the brake incident was an accident.”
I laughed.
“That’s his deal?”
“He’s scared.”
“Good.”
Monica folded the letter.
“He’s also trying to separate the financial crimes from the potential homicide case.”
“Can he?”
“He can try.”
I took the letter home.
I read it alone.
Claire,
You know me better than anyone.
That sentence made me furious.
You know I would never hurt you.
I thought about my brakes.
I thought about Sophia.
I thought about the insurance policy.
I kept reading.
Natalie is using you. She always has been manipulative. There are things you don’t know about her.
I stopped.
Ryan always did that.
Moved the spotlight.
Changed the villain.
Made you question the person standing beside you so you didn’t question him.
But the next line bothered me.
Ask Natalie why she withdrew $90,000 from Northstar Consulting six weeks ago.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Natalie had told me she knew nothing about Northstar.
I called Monica.
She told me not to confront anyone until we verified it.
Within two hours, she called back.
Her voice was tight.
“The transaction exists.”
My chest went cold.
“What transaction?”
“Ninety thousand dollars was transferred from a Northstar account.”
“To Natalie?”
“To an account bearing her name.”
I drove straight to Natalie’s apartment.
She opened the door.
One look at my face and she knew something was wrong.
“What happened?”
I held up Ryan’s letter.
“Did you take ninety thousand dollars from Northstar?”
May you like
All color left her face.
And she didn’t say no.
