Chapter 9 - THOMAS KEENE
The blood turned out to belong to Thomas.
But not enough to prove he was dead.
Police found signs of a struggle.
A broken chair.
A cracked cabinet.
His phone was missing.
His car was gone.
And on the kitchen counter sat a printed photograph.
Me.
Holding Lily.
The picture had been taken outside our pediatrician’s office six months earlier.
I stared at it.
Someone had been watching us long before the birthday dinner.
Caroline immediately pushed for stronger protective orders.
The police opened a separate investigation.
Robert denied everything.
Jason stopped answering questions.
Diane called me from a blocked number.
“You happy now?”
I almost hung up.
Then I thought better of it.
I started recording.
“What do you want?”
“You’ve ruined this family.”
“No.”
I looked at Lily sleeping across the room.
“You all did that yourselves.”
“Robert has done more for Jason than you ever will.”
“What did he do?”
Silence.
I pressed.
“Did he pay him?”
“Jason made sacrifices.”
“For what?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Diane’s voice dropped.
“You think because you collected a few little screenshots, you know everything?”
My pulse quickened.
“What don’t I know?”
She laughed.
“You married a Bennett.”
“That was my first mistake.”
“No.”
Her voice became almost gentle.
“Your first mistake was thinking Jason chose you.”
The call ended.
I sat still.
Then called Caroline.
“What did she mean?”
“I don’t know.”
That afternoon, Marcus brought us Jason and my marriage license.
Nothing unusual.
Then my original marriage application.
Still nothing.
Then another document.
A prenuptial agreement.
I had never seen it before.
My signature was on it.
Fake.
I knew immediately.
“That isn’t mine.”
Caroline compared it to other signatures.
“It’s close.”
“But not mine.”
The agreement said I waived claims to multiple Bennett family assets.
Fine.
I never wanted their money.
But buried in the language was something else.
A confidentiality clause.
If I disclosed information about “family business matters,” I would supposedly owe damages.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Caroline nodded.
“Also likely unenforceable if forged.”
Marcus pointed at the date.
“It was signed two days before your wedding.”
“I was in Indiana with my parents.”
“Exactly.”
“Who witnessed it?”
Marcus flipped the page.
Robert Bennett.
Of course.
Then Caroline read a line aloud.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She handed me the document.
The clause referred to “the Bennett-Keene settlement.”
My stomach dropped.
“Keene.”
Marcus nodded.
Thomas Keene.
The missing accountant.
We finally had a connection.
By evening, police found Thomas’s car abandoned near the Illinois-Wisconsin border.
Inside the trunk was a laptop.
The hard drive had been damaged.
But Marcus’s forensic guy recovered one folder.
It was labeled:
EMILY.
Inside were dozens of files.
And one video.
Thomas appeared on screen.
He looked terrified.
“If you’re watching this, something happened to me.”
May you like
I stopped breathing.
Then he said my husband’s name.
