Chapter 3 - The Unlikely Visitor
I did not sleep a single minute that night.
By dawn, my mind was racing with terrifying visions of going to federal prison for a crime I didn't commit.
Natalie woke up early and immediately went out to buy us untraceable burner phones and hot coffee.
I sat alone on the edge of the bed, staring at the documents that proved I was a millionaire on paper.
I needed to speak to my divorce attorney, Rebecca Shaw, the second her office opened.
At exactly eight o'clock, someone knocked sharply on the motel room door.
I froze in place, my heart hammering furiously against my ribcage.
I assumed it was Natalie returning with our breakfast.
But Natalie had taken the only plastic key card with her.
I crept toward the door and peered carefully through the scratched glass peephole.
It wasn't Natalie, and it certainly wasn't the police.
Standing in the dim hallway, looking frantic and completely disheveled, was Claire Halstead.
My husband's twenty-nine-year-old mistress was shivering in a designer coat, clutching a thick manila envelope.
I opened the door just enough to keep the metal chain lock safely engaged.
I sharply asked her how on earth she had found me hiding in this dump.
Claire looked at me with thick black mascara tears streaming down her perfectly manicured face.
She said she had secretly followed Daniel's car last night, only to watch him follow Natalie's car.
She begged me to let her inside, swearing that Daniel was planning to kill us both.
I hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was just another one of his sick mind games.
But the genuine, raw terror in Claire's bloodshot eyes convinced me to slide the chain off the door.
She stepped into the room and immediately locked the heavy deadbolt behind her.
She dropped the damp envelope onto the small table and pulled out a stack of surveillance photographs.
Claire tearfully confessed that Daniel never actually intended to marry her.
She had accidentally found his burner phone yesterday afternoon hidden deep inside his leather gym bag.
He had only been using her high-level security clearance to access the company's restricted financial accounts.
Then she slid the most recent printed text messages across the table toward me.
He had hired a professional fixer to permanently silence the embezzler who stole the four million dollars.
Since I was the legal owner of that bank account, I was the sole target of the hit.
Claire looked at me with wide, panicked eyes and delivered the final, crushing blow.
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She said the hitman wasn't coming for me tomorrow or next week.
She pointed a trembling finger toward the window and whispered that the killer was already in the motel parking lot.
