Chapter 12 - OCTOBER 14
“What was supposed to happen on October 14?”
Nobody knew.
That scared me more than an answer would have.
Detectives searched my house again.
My car.
Ryan’s office.
The storage unit.
His mother’s cabin.
His laptop contained a calendar entry for October 14.
No description.
Just a reminder:
11:30 PM.
Detective Harris asked about my schedule.
“I work late Thursdays.”
October 14 was a Thursday.
“What time do you usually leave?”
“Ten thirty.”
“How do you get home?”
“I drive.”
He asked whether I normally took the interstate.
I did.
Then he asked whether Ryan knew my route.
I stared at him.
“Of course he did.”
Investigators checked Ryan’s online searches.
The results made my skin crawl.
Single-car fatality statistics.
Life insurance claim waiting period.
Brake failure highway.
How long police retain wrecked vehicles.
Every search had an innocent explanation.
Together, they didn’t feel innocent at all.
Then they found a receipt.
Two weeks earlier, Ryan had purchased a prepaid phone.
That phone had contacted a man named Travis Boone.
Boone had a record for auto theft and insurance fraud.
Police brought him in.
For six hours, he denied everything.
Then they showed him Ryan’s notebook.
His name appeared beside a dollar amount.
20K.
Travis asked for a lawyer.
By midnight, he was negotiating.
The next morning, Detective Harris called me.
“Sit down.”
I did.
“Travis says Ryan hired him to cause an accident.”
My stomach dropped.
“What kind of accident?”
“Run you off the road.”
I couldn’t feel my hands.
“On October fourteenth?”
“Yes.”
Natalie grabbed my shoulder.
Harris continued.
“He says Ryan wanted it to look like you lost control.”
“Why didn’t Travis do it sooner?”
“The date hadn’t arrived.”
“What was Ryan paying him with?”
“Cash.”
“From the money he stole from me?”
“Likely.”
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because Ryan had apparently planned to use my money to pay for my death.
The charges changed again.
Conspiracy.
Solicitation.
Identity theft.
Bank fraud.
Forgery.
Bigamy.
Insurance fraud.
Potential charges connected to Sophia remained under investigation.
The prosecutor offered Ryan a plea deal.
Twenty-two years.
He refused.
“He thinks he can beat it,” Monica told me.
“How?”
“By attacking the witnesses.”
“Us.”
“Yes.”
So that was the plan.
Turn Natalie into a bitter wife.
Turn Megan into a rejected fiancée.
Turn me into a vindictive girlfriend who had knowingly signed financial documents.
Turn every woman he betrayed into a liar.
Trial was scheduled months later.
During discovery, Ryan’s attorney submitted a list of possible defense evidence.
One item caught Monica’s attention.
An audio recording.
She called me into her office.
“Ryan recorded you.”
“When?”
“We don’t know.”
“What did I say?”
She looked uncomfortable.
“He has a recording where you apparently say, ‘Just sign my name. I don’t care.’”
My stomach dropped.
“I never told him to sign loan documents.”
“I believe you.”
“Will a jury?”
Monica didn’t answer.
Then she pressed play.
My own voice filled the office.
“Just sign my name. I don’t care.”
Ryan laughed in the background.
The clip ended.
Four seconds.
Four seconds that could cost me my home.
Four seconds that could make me look like a liar.
May you like
Then I remembered when I had said it.
And suddenly, I knew exactly what Ryan had done.
