Chapter 12 - The Wrong Widow —
Daniel’s grief changed once he couldn’t get into my files.
He stopped talking to reporters.
He stopped answering Ben’s calls.
Then he called Ortiz.
She let me listen from my bed while another investigator recorded the conversation.
“I’m trying to settle my wife’s affairs,” he said. “There are some professional records that might be sensitive.”
“What kind of records?”
“Client information. Old investigations.”
“Why would that concern you?”
A pause.
“Because I’m her husband.”
Ortiz said nothing.
Daniel filled the silence.
“She could be secretive about work.”
My face grew hot.
He was doing it already.
Turning caution into instability.
Privacy into suspicion.
“She was under a lot of stress before the wedding,” he continued.
“Did you seek help for her?”
“She wouldn’t admit she needed it.”
I stared at the speaker.
This was the man who used to tell me I was the calmest person he knew.
Ortiz asked him to come in and clarify his account of the fire.
He said he needed to check his schedule.
After the call, I laughed.
It sounded ugly.
“My death is very inconvenient for him.”
Ortiz leaned against the counter.
“He’s losing control of the story.”
“Then he’ll make another one.”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
I finally asked the question I had been avoiding.
“Why did he collapse?”
Ortiz thought before answering.
“Maybe he expected a missing person. Maybe the paper made it real. Maybe he wanted the nurse to see grief.”
“Maybe he loved me.”
The words embarrassed me as soon as they left my mouth.
Ortiz didn’t look away.
“Whatever he felt, he still left you.”
That was the sentence I needed.
Not because it answered everything.
Because it answered enough.
The next morning, Vanessa went to the department offices with a box.
She collected her belongings.
By noon, she had booked a flight.
Daniel hadn’t bought a ticket.
When he found out, he called her fourteen times in eleven minutes.
On the fifteenth call, she answered.
Investigators listened.
“You don’t get to leave me holding this,” he said.
Vanessa’s reply was sharp.
“You were supposed to make sure the door stayed shut.”
May you like
I looked at Ortiz.
For the first time since the wedding, she didn’t tell me they needed more.
