Chapter 1 - The Trap is Set
The smile I gave Evelyn Mercer was the coldest thing I had ever manufactured. It was the smile of an auditor who had just found the missing decimal point that would ruin a criminal's life.
"Insurance fraud requires a willing co-conspirator, Evelyn," I said, my voice dangerously calm, barely a whisper so the recording on my phone would catch every pristine frequency. "I was a grieving widow. You were the beneficiary of my blind trust. Let's see who the FBI believes."
Daniel stepped between us, his chest heaving under his expensive cashmere sweater—no doubt bought with my money. "Claire, let’s be reasonable. You have a good career now. Why blow up everyone’s life? There’s enough money for everyone."
"Money?" I let out a soft, sharp laugh. "You think this is about money, Daniel? You let me bury an empty casket. I spent two years in therapy blaming myself for not being in the car with you that night. I gave your mother my father’s inheritance to 'save the family business' while you were busy making a new family."
Inside the room, the baby began to cry. The young mother's voice drifted out again, higher this time, tinged with confusion. "Danny? Who are you talking to out there?"
Daniel looked trapped. He glanced nervously at the nurse's station at the end of the hall. "Go home, Claire. We will call you. We can arrange a settlement."
"Don't bother," I said. I turned on my heel and walked down the sterile corridor, my heels clicking like a countdown clock.
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As soon as I reached my car in the parking lot, I locked the doors, pulled out my phone, and saved the audio file to three separate secure cloud servers. My hands were shaking, not from fear, but from the terrifying, exhilarating rush of adrenaline.
Daniel Mercer was alive. And by the time I was done, he would wish he had stayed at the bottom of the Atlantic.
