Chapter 2 - The Empty Account
I stared at the flight attendant in absolute horror.
Her name tag read Chloe, and her eyes were completely dead despite the wide smile plastered on her face.
Before I could even process her threat, she placed a plastic cup of water on my tray table and casually walked away.
Mason tugged gently at my sleeve, completely unaware of the sinister exchange that had just occurred.
"Mom, why is Dad marrying someone else?" he asked, his voice trembling on the verge of tears.
I forced the most reassuring smile I could muster and gently stroked his hair.
"It is just a silly joke for his work, sweetie, I promise," I lied, though my heart was violently pounding against my ribs.
I needed to figure out exactly what Tyler was planning before this plane touched down in Chicago.
My trembling fingers pulled my phone out of my pocket, and I quickly purchased the expensive inflight Wi-Fi.
If Tyler was planning to leave me for this Valerie woman, he might have already started untangling our lives.
I opened my banking app, praying that my sudden wave of intense paranoia was just an overreaction.
The loading icon spun for what felt like an absolute eternity.
When the screen finally refreshed, all the air rushed out of my lungs.
Our joint checking account, which had held all our savings for a new house, showed a balance of exactly zero dollars.
Every single penny we had saved over the last five years was completely gone.
A cold sweat broke out across my forehead as I rapidly clicked into our secondary savings account.
It was completely empty, too.
He had drained everything we owned while I was busy planning this stupid, romantic surprise.
My phone suddenly buzzed in my hand, nearly causing me to drop it on the floor.
A text message had just arrived from an unknown, untraceable number.
"You should have stayed home, Sarah," the chilling message read.
I whipped my head around, frantically scanning the faces of the passengers sitting behind me.
Someone on this very plane was actively watching me and texting me on Tyler's behalf.
I looked out the small oval window, seeking some kind of comfort in the familiar geography of the Midwest.
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit.
Instead of the sprawling, gray cityscapes and flat plains of the route to Chicago, I saw massive, jagged mountains jutting into the sky.
The afternoon sun was glaring from the wrong direction entirely.
We were not flying east toward Chicago at all.
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Just as I realized we were heading deep south into completely unknown territory, the passenger in the window seat next to me slowly took off his sunglasses.
"Sit down and keep quiet, or your son goes out the emergency exit," the strange man whispered, flashing a metallic object hidden under his jacket.
