Chapter 7 - THE MAN INSIDE THE CASE
Grayson was not on the ship.
That made him harder to reach.
Federal agents moved on his Florida home.
Empty.
His office had been wiped.
Bank accounts showed recent withdrawals.
He was running.
Daniel sensed the shift.
He stopped asking for a lawyer and asked for me.
Donnelly said no.
I said yes.
We sat across from each other in a secured interview room.
A camera recorded everything.
Daniel looked almost like the man I married.
That was the worst part.
“I love you,” he said.
“No.”
“You think none of it was real?”
“I think real people don’t buy five-million-dollar death policies in secret.”
His jaw tightened.
“Rebecca poisoned everything.”
“Rebecca is alive.”
His face changed.
There.
Not surprise.
Fear.
“You know that for sure?”
I leaned back.
“Thank you.”
He realized the mistake.
If he believed she could be alive, he knew more than an innocent widower should.
Daniel tried to recover.
“She disappeared once. Maybe she came back.”
“You collected insurance.”
“I was declared beneficiary.”
“You forged documents.”
“Fisk did paperwork.”
Donnelly watched from behind the glass.
Daniel leaned closer.
“Listen to me. Grayson is the dangerous one.”
“Not you?”
“I never killed anyone.”
The sentence was too specific.
I asked:
“Then what did you do?”
He looked away.
Daniel admitted moving Rebecca off the cruise.
He claimed he wanted to scare her into surrendering financial records.
Grayson arranged the false timeline.
Fisk handled the insurance.
Then Rebecca escaped the Charleston house.
Daniel had not seen her since.
“What about Marisol?”
His face closed.
“Who?”
I held his gaze.
“The boating accident.”
No answer.
“Jennifer?”
“She fell.”
“And me?”
He looked at the table.
“I lost my temper.”
“With a bat you bought before the wedding?”
Silence.
Then he whispered:
“You weren’t supposed to be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Difficult.”
I smiled without humor.
“You mean alive.”
He looked up.
For the first time, I saw hate without disguise.
Then Donnelly entered holding a phone.
“We found Grayson.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“Where?”
She did not answer him.
May you like
She looked at me.
“Rebecca found him first.”
