Chapter 2 - The Ghost in the Cubicle
By 9:00 AM, I was sitting at my desk in the sterile, fluorescent-lit bullpen of Apex Financial, staring blankly at an Excel spreadsheet that refused to make sense. Numbers blurred into meaningless lines. My mind was racing, replaying the old woman's face on the bus. Who was she? How did she know?
"Vargas! Earth to Danielle!"
I jumped, nearly spilling my coffee as Sarah, my desk neighbor and closest work friend, dropped a stack of tax audits onto my keyboard.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Sarah said, pulling up a chair and lowering her voice. "Or worse, like you spent the night with Marcus. Seriously, Dani, are you okay? You look pale enough to haunt a Victorian mansion."
I wanted to tell her. God, I wanted to scream it across the office: My husband is trying to murder me for a million-dollar life insurance policy! But corporate walls have ears, and more importantly, Marcus had a network here. He was the senior risk analyst; everyone loved him.
"Just insomnia," I muttered, forcing a laugh. "Too much coffee, too many deadlines."
"Well, speaking of deadlines and your charming husband," Sarah said, leaning in closer with a curious frown, "didn't you say he handled your policy update last year through the company’s corporate benefits package?"
My blood ran cold. "Why do you ask?"
"Nothing, just... I was processing some HR routing slips this morning from the corporate insurance desk downstairs. Your name crossed my screen because of a recent beneficiary adjustment. I thought it was weird since HR usually handles those directly, but it was flagged under Marcus's internal security clearance code."
My fingers curled into fists inside my lap. A beneficiary adjustment.
"What kind of adjustment, Sarah?" I asked, my voice dangerously quiet.
She blinked, picking up on the sudden chill in my tone. "Well... it looked like your primary beneficiary was changed. From your mother to... sole discretion of your legal spouse, with a double-indemnity clause for accidental or sudden illness."
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It wasn't just murder. It was an execution designed to look like natural causes—a sudden cardiac arrest brought on by heavy metal poisoning, signed off by a corrupt doctor in Marcus's pocket.
"Sarah," I said, grabbing her forearm with an urgency that made her flinch. "I need a favor. A massive favor. I need you to pull the digital metadata on that file, and I need you to help me disappear for forty-eight hours without Marcus knowing."
