Chapter 3 - THE GHOST OF SAVANNAHMy heart stopped. The air inside the grand foyer suddenly felt thin, suffocating, and icy cold.
"His... his first wife?" I breathed, reaching out to steady myself against the banister. "Jack told me he was never married before me. He told me I was his first and only."
Marcus drew a deep breath and pulled a thin, blue folder out of his briefcase. "When Jack applied for his senior role at our firm, we ran a standard background check. Nothing flagged because his legal record was spotless. But after you sent me those offshore transaction logs last night, my tech team scraped the underlying metadata attached to the Evelyn Reed account."
He handed me the file. My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a faded photograph of a young woman with warm brown eyes and a brilliant, radiant smile. She looked barely twenty-five. Below her picture was a scanned newspaper article from 2019: SAVANNAH WOMAN VANISHES WITHOUT A TRACE; HUSBAND CLEARED OF SUSPICION.
"Her legal name was Evelyn Reed-Thompson," Marcus explained grimly. "She disappeared six months after they got married. The police investigated Jack back then, but Linda swore under oath that Jack was with her in Charleston the weekend Evelyn disappeared. The case went cold."
I turned around slowly to look into the dining room.
Linda was no longer crying. She was sitting rigid in her chair, staring at me through the open doorway. When she saw the blue folder in my hands, her face didn't show fear—it showed a cold, calculated malevolence that made my blood run cold.
She knew.
She had known all along.
"She didn't just help him steal money," I whispered, the realization striking me like a physical blow. "She helped him cover up a crime."
"We don't have forensic proof yet," Marcus warned gently. "All we know is that Jack has been actively using Evelyn’s Social Security number to move money overseas for five years. That means either she is alive and helping him... or Jack is using a dead woman's identity to stash his fortune."
"She’s not alive," a harsh, raspy voice called out from the dining room.
Marcus and I both turned.
Linda rose slowly from the table. She adjusted her designer jacket, patted her perfectly styled hair, and walked toward us with a chilling, vacant calm. The hysterical mother who was weeping five minutes ago had completely vanished.
"You think you’re so smart, don't you, Claire?" Linda sneered, standing just a few feet away from me. "You think because you caught him with spreadsheets and bank statements that you’ve won the whole game?"
"Where is Evelyn, Linda?" I demanded, my voice trembling with a mixture of rage and terror.
Linda smirked—that same twisted, cruel smirk she had worn when she looked at my bleeding lip earlier that morning.
"Evelyn was weak," Linda said softly, her eyes dead and dark. "Just like you. She thought she could ask questions. She thought she could threaten my son’s future. She thought she could take half of what belonged to this family."
"What did Jack do to her?!" I yelled, stepping closer.
"Jack did what a real man does when a pest invades his home," Linda whispered coldly. "And if you know what’s good for you, Claire, you’ll drop this whole thing, take whatever little divorce settlement the bankruptcy court gives you, and run far away. Because Jack might be in handcuffs today... but my family has deep roots. And dead girls don't testify in court."
Before Marcus could pull me back, I stepped right into Linda’s face. The pain in my swollen lip was gone, replaced by a searing, white-hot fury.
"You’re right, Linda," I hissed, my eyes locking onto hers with absolute authority. "Dead girls don't testify. But I’m not dead. And I’m going to make sure both you and your precious son rot in the exact same hell you built for her."
At that moment, the front door burst open again. Two uniformed FBI agents walked in, accompanied by a female lead investigator holding an arrest warrant.
"Linda Thompson?" the lead agent asked sharply. "You are under arrest as an accessory to federal financial fraud and obstruction of justice."
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As the metal cuffs clicked around Linda’s frail, manicured wrists, she didn't scream or cry. She just kept her cold, terrifying gaze locked onto mine, leaning close as she was led past me.
"Check the basement floor in Savannah, Claire," Linda whispered with a sickening smile. "If you have the stomach for it."
