Chapter 3 - THE ACCOUNT THAT SHOULDN'T EXIST
The transaction was for $6.4 million.
It left Vance Global Infrastructure at 9:12 a.m. on the morning Lily died.
The money traveled through three companies in Delaware.
Then Luxembourg.
Then the Cayman Islands.
Finally, it disappeared into an account controlled by something called the Halcyon Trust.
Agent Hale showed me the documents the following morning.
“Recognize that name?”
“No.”
“Neither does the board.”
“Who controls it?”
“We don't know yet.”
I looked through the paperwork.
Then I saw a signature.
My signature.
My blood went cold.
“I didn't sign this.”
“We know.”
“My name authorized the transfer.”
“Yes.”
“I've never seen this document.”
Hale nodded.
“We believe your signature was forged.”
Suddenly the investigation wasn't simply David's problem.
He had used me.
My name.
My identity.
Possibly for years.
“How many?”
“We're still counting.”
“How many documents have my signature?”
“At least nineteen.”
I felt sick.
David hadn't merely betrayed our marriage.
He had constructed a financial shield with me standing directly in front of him.
“If this hadn't been discovered, what would happen?”
Hale didn't soften the answer.
“You could have been charged.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
David had planned everything.
The affair.
The money.
The escape.
And if the scheme collapsed after he disappeared, his wife would be left behind with forged documents pointing directly at her.
I remembered his message.
Maya and the kid become someone else's problem.
Except Lily was dead.
Which meant only Maya remained.
The perfect person to blame.
My grief transformed.
Until that moment, it had been heavy.
Now it became sharp.
“I want everything.”
Hale looked at me.
“Everything?”
“Every document with my name.”
“That could be difficult.”
“Then make it difficult.”
For the first time, Hale smiled.
“That's exactly what we're doing.”
David's bail hearing was scheduled for that afternoon.
His attorney argued he wasn't a flight risk.
Federal prosecutors disagreed.
They presented the Bahamas trip.
The offshore accounts.
The planned transfer.
Then Julianne's messages.
David remained expressionless until prosecutors mentioned the forged signatures.
That's when he looked toward me.
I was sitting in the back row.
Our eyes met.
His face said everything.
He knew I understood.
Bail was denied.
As officers led him away, he shouted my name.
“Maya!”
The judge slammed his gavel.
David ignored him.
“Maya, tell me where Lily is!”
I didn't move.
Then David shouted something that silenced the courtroom.
“I know she was sick!”
My heart stopped.
He knew?
I stood.
David was dragged through the side door before I could speak.
Outside the courtroom, I confronted Hale.
“He knew.”
“We heard.”
“He knew Lily was sick.”
“We don't know when he found out.”
“He said he knew.”
Hale immediately called one of his investigators.
Within hours, they obtained another set of records.
The yacht's communication logs.
David had received my messages.
All of them.
Including the one that said Lily was in intensive care.
Including photographs from the hospital.
Including a voicemail from Lily's doctor.
David hadn't misunderstood.
He hadn't assumed I was being anxious.
He knew our daughter was critically ill.
And he'd stayed on the yacht anyway.
That night, I finally listened to a voicemail recovered from his cloud account.
It had been sent by Dr. Patel twelve hours before Lily died.
“Mr. Vance, your daughter is critically ill.”
“Your wife has been trying to reach you.”
“We strongly recommend you come to the hospital immediately.”
The system showed David listened to it.
Forty-seven seconds.
The entire message.
Then he blocked the hospital's number.
I dropped the phone.
For fourteen days, I had believed David didn't know.
That belief had been the final scrap of mercy I'd accidentally given him.
Now it was gone.
May you like
He knew.
He had always known.
