Chapter 4 - DANIEL’S PHONE CALL WASN’T TO A MISTRESS
For the first twenty-four hours, I assumed Daniel’s call had been romantic.
Who else would he say:
It’s done. Soon they’ll both be gone.
I was wrong.
The number belonged to a man named Victor Hale.
Daniel’s former business partner.
That name made my stomach drop.
Six months earlier, Daniel told me Victor had moved to Florida.
He hadn’t.
He lived forty minutes away.
Detective Martinez did not tell me everything immediately.
But eventually, financial records revealed why Victor mattered.
Daniel had invested heavily in a failed commercial project.
Far more heavily than he admitted.
The losses were not small.
He had borrowed.
Refinanced.
Shifted money.
And hidden debt.
Then investigators found something worse.
A life-insurance policy.
On me.
Large.
Much larger than I knew.
Noah was also covered under a separate accidental-death rider connected to a family policy.
I stared at the paperwork.
“Who bought this?”
“Daniel arranged it.”
“When?”
“About fourteen months ago.”
Fourteen months.
Before our marriage had even begun feeling strange.
My skin went cold.
Detective Martinez said:
“A policy is not proof of intent.”
I nodded.
Important.
But paired with everything else?
The dinner.
The call.
The financial crisis.
The missing phones.
The fact Daniel did not eat.
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The story was becoming harder to explain as coincidence.
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