Prescott Health Systems.
There was a supply contract between them.
Or a proposed one.
I couldn’t understand most of it.
I searched the document for Ethan’s name.
No result.
Then I searched “Walker.”
Nothing.
My phone buzzed.
Another message.
Keep reading. Page 47.
My mouth went dry.
I scrolled.
Page 47 contained a list of authorized representatives.
Halfway down was a name I recognized.
Not Ethan.
Samuel R. Baines.
I stared at it.
Sam Baines had been Ethan’s best friend since college.
Best man at our wedding.
Lily called him Uncle Sam.
He had eaten Thanksgiving dinner in our home.
I kept reading.
His title:
Chief Financial Officer, Northbridge Medical Logistics LLC.
“What?”
I whispered aloud.
I had never heard Sam mention Northbridge.
As far as I knew, he worked in commercial insurance.
I reached for my phone.
Ethan had sent another message.
Now search my emails for “Caroline.”
My heart stopped.
Caroline.
Adrian’s sister.
I looked toward the locked hotel door as though Adrian might somehow still be standing outside it.
Slowly, I returned to my inbox.
I typed the name.
Dozens of results appeared.
Most were meaningless promotional emails.
Caroline’s Closet.
Caroline Herrera advertisements.
A newsletter from a restaurant.
Then one message appeared with a sender I recognized.
Samuel Baines.
Two years and eleven months earlier.
Subject:
C. Prescott file
My palms became damp.
I opened it.
There was no attachment.
Only a short exchange.
Sam had written:
Ethan, stop asking questions about this. I mean it. Delete the spreadsheet I sent you.
Ethan had replied twelve minutes later.
You told me the numbers were routine. They aren’t. If Caroline Prescott’s treatment orders were routed through Northbridge, then I need to know why the invoices don’t match the shipments.
I forgot to breathe.
Sam’s response:
This has nothing to do with her treatment outcome. Don’t make connections that aren’t there.
Ethan:
Then explain the missing inventory.
There were no more messages.
I read the exchange three times.
Then a fourth.
Caroline Prescott.
Treatment orders.
Northbridge.
Missing inventory.
My first thought was that it had to be a coincidence.
Prescott was a common enough surname.
Except Adrian had told me his sister’s name only hours earlier.
Caroline.
Leukemia.
And Prescott Health was listed in the Northbridge documents.
My phone rang.
Ethan.
This time I answered.
Neither of us spoke at first.
Then he said, “Elena?”
I nearly hung up at the sound of his voice.
Five years of marriage lived inside two syllables.
Good mornings.
Arguments.
Birthday dinners.
Lily’s first cry in the delivery room.
Nights waiting for him to come home.
The sound of keys turning in a lock.
“Why is Caroline Prescott in your email?”
Silence.
Then Ethan exhaled.
“You found it.”
“You told me to.”
“I wasn’t sure you still had those messages.”
“What is Northbridge?”
“Elena—”
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say my name like you’re preparing me for something.”
A pause.
“I’m not.”
“You always do.”
He didn’t answer.
I stood and walked toward the window.
Below me, cars moved along the freeway like red and white beads of light.
“What is Northbridge?” I repeated.
“A medical distribution company.”
“Sam’s company?”
“Partly.”
“Partly?”
“He was CFO. I don’t know how much ownership he had.”
“You knew?”
“Not at first.”
“And what did Caroline Prescott have to do with it?”
Another long silence.
“Ethan.”
“She was a patient in a Prescott Health hospital.”
“I know that.”
“You know?”
“Adrian told me his sister died of leukemia.”
I heard movement on Ethan’s end.
“Elena, listen carefully. Do not tell Prescott about those emails yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know who around him is involved.”
My skin prickled.
“Involved in what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to believe documents.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“You’ve spent months hiding things from me, Ethan.”
“I know.”
“You changed the locks.”
“I know.”
“You emptied our account.”
“I didn’t empty it.”
“You moved the money somewhere I couldn’t access.”
“Yes.”
“Which is another way of saying you took it.”
His voice hardened slightly.
“No. It isn’t.”
“There you are.”
“What?”
“That tone. The one where you explain reality to me.”
“Elena, I’m not trying to—”
“Yes, you are.”
I closed my eyes.
“I cannot do this with you anymore.”
“I know.”
His voice was quieter now.
“And I know saying that doesn’t fix anything.”
That stopped me.
This didn’t sound like Ethan.
Or perhaps it did.
Perhaps I simply hadn’t heard this version of him in a very long time.
“Why are you looking for me?”
“Because someone photographed you with Adrian Prescott.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I saw the picture. Then Sam called me.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Sam called you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether you knew Prescott.”
“I didn’t.”
“I told him that.”
“And?”
“And Sam didn’t believe me.”
A sound came from the crib.
I turned.
Lily shifted beneath her blanket but remained asleep.
“What does Sam have to do with my marriage?” I whispered.
“That’s complicated.”
“Try.”
Ethan was silent for so long I thought the call had dropped.
Then he said, “The woman in the pictures.”
Every muscle in my body went still.
“What woman?”
“The pictures you saw online. The ones of me.”
My mouth went dry.
The photographs that had ended our marriage.
Ethan at a restaurant with a beautiful dark-haired woman.
Ethan leaving a hotel lobby with his hand at her back.
Ethan sitting beside her at a rooftop bar.
He had never denied knowing her.
He had only refused to explain.
“What about her?”
“She’s Sam’s sister.”
I stared into the dark window.
“My God.”
“Elena—”
“You cheated on me with your best friend’s sister?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that now?”
“I never touched her.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You stayed at a hotel with her.”
“I met her in the lobby.”
“You were photographed going upstairs.”
“Because we had a meeting in a conference room.”
“At eleven thirty at night?”
“Yes.”
“That is absurd.”
“I know how it looks.”
“You knew how it looked when you refused to explain it!”
“I couldn’t explain it.”
“Why?”
“Because Rebecca was trying to help me.”
“With what?”
“Northbridge.”
I stopped pacing.
The room suddenly felt very cold.
“Rebecca?”
“That’s her name.”
I remembered comments under the photographs.
Mystery brunette.
New romance.
Dallas socialite.
Not once had I seen her actual name.
“What was she helping you find?”
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
“I’m not discussing this over the phone.”
I almost screamed.
“You called me!”
“Because seeing you beside Adrian Prescott changed things.”
“How?”
“Because Sam has been asking about Prescott for months.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that!”
“I don’t know everything, Elena!”
For the first time, his voice cracked.
Not with anger.
Fear.
Genuine fear.
I had heard Ethan worried.
Frustrated.
Exhausted.
I could not remember hearing him afraid.
He lowered his voice.
“I found discrepancies in Northbridge’s records almost three years ago. Medical supplies paid for but never delivered. Orders changed after approval. Inventory numbers altered.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“Our firm handled financial compliance consulting for them.”
I knew Ethan worked in corporate accounting.
I had never cared much about the details.
“One of the hospital accounts connected to those invoices belonged to Prescott Health,” he continued. “Caroline Prescott’s oncology unit was among the departments listed.”
My stomach turned.
“You think something happened to her because of missing supplies?”
“No.”
His answer came immediately.
“I have no evidence of that. None. And that’s exactly why I told Sam not to make that connection when he accused me of implying it.”
“Then why does any of this matter now?”
“Because the irregularities continued after Caroline died.”
I sat slowly on the bed
