PART 2
Toby had stumbled onto those hidden policies because Christopher had asked him to clean up old digital folders from our storage drive earlier that week. My fourteen-year-old, away at a prep school in Indianapolis, had a level of tech literacy his father badly underestimated.
I called him back immediately. “Toby, listen very carefully. Do not confront your father under any circumstances. Just keep copying every file you find.”
“Already backed everything up on a private drive, Mom,” he said, voice shaking. “Please be careful around him.”
Next I called Dean, a security specialist who’d run my father’s building security for two decades before joining my design firm. Dean pulled footage from a hidden wildlife camera on our neighbor’s garage, confirming my worst fears. It showed Christopher parking two blocks away, pulling on a hood and gloves, and sneaking through our backyard to bypass the gated community’s guardhouse.
“This is clear evidence of premeditated attempted murder, Gwen,” Dean said flatly. “We need to go to the police right now.”
“Not yet, Dean,” I said, cold rage replacing my fear. “I need to know why, and I need every person involved.”
The answer came sooner than expected. That afternoon I drove to Christopher’s headquarters in Minneapolis with a lunch box as cover. Walking down the executive hallway, I overheard his CFO through a cracked office door.
“You have to replace the six million you pulled from the hedge accounts before month’s end, Christopher,” the executive warned. “If the board finds this shortfall, the funding round is dead and they freeze every asset.”
Christopher answered with a chilling calm. “Don’t panic. By next week, a very large amount of capital is coming in to cover every account.”
My life and my father’s legacy — being auctioned off to cover his illegal debts.
Before I could walk away, a woman’s voice spoke up inside. Valerie Vance, who ran the PR agency handling Christopher’s firm. I peered through the gap in the door and saw her standing behind him, rubbing his shoulders.
“When are you finally going to end this double life?” Valerie murmured. “You promised me that brick estate in Cleveland would be ours soon. The baby can’t be raised in a cramped apartment.”
“We’re almost at the finish line, my sweet Valerie,” Christopher said, hand resting on her visible baby bump. “Gwen’s already acting paranoid, so if we can get a corrupt physician to document severe depression and hallucinations, the rest is effortless.”
The room spun. Christopher wasn’t just planning to kill me — he was actively engineering the story that would explain my death before he even did it.
I took a breath, knocked, and walked in with a bright fake smile. “Hi honey, I brought lunch from that bistro you love.”
For thirty agonizing minutes I played the dutiful, naive wife, nodding along as Christopher gently suggested I seemed stressed and offered to book me with a psychiatrist he knew in Cincinnati.
That evening, my mother-in-law, Beatrice, showed up with chicken soup and a lecture disguised as concern. “Gwen, dear, Christopher’s under so much stress with his firm right now,” she said, setting the dish down. “Your house is worth a fortune — you really ought to sign the deed over to him, or take out a mortgage to help his business. After all, what’s yours is your husband’s.”
That was the moment I understood the greed ran through his whole family.
Late that night I searched my father’s old basement study and found fresh scratch marks around the lockbox where he’d kept his business licenses and deeds. Two days later, a PI hired by my corporate attorney confirmed the rest: Christopher was drowning in millions in gambling debt, had made suspicious offshore transfers, and had tried to bribe a local doctor into fabricating records about my mental stability.
The final piece came from an audio recording secretly made by an honest junior executive at his firm. In it, Christopher could be heard tracing my signature onto a legal transfer contract while Valerie held a folder with my design firm’s logo.
“With this forged signature, we transfer all of Gwen’s licenses and contracts to our shell company,” Christopher said. “Once she’s out of the picture, no one’s around to contest it.”
I shut off the recording and looked Dean in the eyes. “We’re done hiding in the shadows, Dean.”
“What’s the plan?” Dean asked, face set.
“Christopher and Valerie are hosting an investor gala in Detroit next Friday,” I said, a cold smile forming. “They think they’re celebrating their new fortune. They’re going to lose everything instead.”
