Chapter 2

The chapel smelled like lilies. It was sickeningly sweet.

I stood in the shadows at the back. Celeste was standing at the podium.

"Margaret was so brave," Celeste choked out. She wiped away a single, perfect tear. "But those 3 a.m. asthma attacks... those nights were the hardest."

My skin crawled.

Those weren't her memories. Those were my nights. I was the one awake in the dark, terrified to close my eyes.

Two weeks ago, Graham had taken my leather-bound nursing diary. He claimed a medical specialist needed to review Margaret's daily symptoms.

He lied. He had handed my life’s work to his mistress. Now, she was reading my pain like a movie script to win the crowd's sympathy.

From the front row, Graham glanced back at me. He smirked.

He was waiting for me to snap. He wanted me to scream and cause a scene. He wanted an excuse to call security and brand me the "crazy, jealous wife."

I didn't give him the satisfaction. I just smiled coldly, turned on my heel, and walked out.

I drove straight to the lake house. I pushed open the door to Margaret’s bedroom.

The room was hollow.

Graham had moved fast. The medicine schedules, my clothes, my personal documents—everything was gone. He wasn't just planning a divorce. He was erasing my seven years of existence.

But Graham was arrogant. He thought he knew everything about this house.

He didn't know Margaret. And he certainly didn't know me.

I walked over to the heavy oak vanity. I didn't look in the drawers. I reached underneath the very bottom panel. My fingers traced the wood until I found a tiny, hidden latch.

Margaret and I had installed it three years ago.

I popped the hidden compartment open. Inside was a small, sealed envelope.

I tore it open. It was a handwritten note from Margaret. Her writing was shaky, written during her final, lucid days.

“He will take the house, Nora. Let him. Don't fight him in the halls. Fight him in the paper trail.”

I stared at the ink. Hot tears finally spilled down my cheeks.

Margaret knew. She always knew I was silently building a case against her greedy son. She knew the "weak wife" was just my disguise.

I wiped my tears and flipped the paper over.

There was a twelve-digit offshore routing number.

This was the master key. It was the root of the Caregiver Trust—the exact account Graham had used to pay for Celeste’s luxury PR team.

Graham thought he had destroyed me. He thought stealing my handwritten nursing diary meant he took all my evidence.

He clearly didn't understand how a Wall Street auditor works.

An auditor never keeps just one set of books.

He took the emotional diary. But I still had the financial one. And now, thanks to Margaret, I had the exact account number to trace his embezzlement.

I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled my laptop from my bag. The grieving, invisible wife was dead.

I typed the twelve digits into my secure audit software.

Enter.

The screen lit up with a massive web of shell companies.

The hunt was on.