“Yes.”
“And they planned something for after I died.”
Noah understood.
“You want them to move.”
“I want them to believe they won.”
Noah’s hidden life existed less than five miles from my own.
That almost offended me more than the wheelchair.
Above an old Mercer Holdings maintenance building outside Bellmere was an apartment filled with screens, locked cabinets and fourteen years of secrets.
Noah had built a private investigation piece by piece.
Former employees.
Corporate filings.
Old accident reports.
Private investigators.
Forensic accountants.
He had never been able to prove enough.
Until Adrian.
A retired Mercer security director met us there before dawn.
She brought clothes.
A doctor came through a rear entrance and took blood samples from me.
That confused me.
“Why blood?”
Noah looked uncomfortable.
“You’ve been sick.”
“I’ve been stressed.”
“Heart palpitations.”
“Dizziness.”
“Headaches.”
“Exhaustion.”
I stared.
“How do you know all that?”
“You complain to me constantly.”
Fair.
Then Noah handed the doctor a small cosmetic bottle.
My night serum.
Adrian had given it to me for our anniversary.
Imported.
Ridiculously expensive.
I looked from the bottle to Noah.
“You tested this?”
“A preliminary sample.”
“And?”
The doctor interrupted.
“We don’t speculate before laboratory confirmation.”
Which meant something was wrong.
I sat down.
Every morning Adrian prepared breakfast when he was home.
He had become obsessed with making me “health drinks” after I started complaining about fatigue.
Vitamin powders.
Electrolyte drops.
Supplements.
He told me I worked too hard.
Told doctors I was under enormous stress.
