Part 3
By morning, Julian had a plan, and I hated how calm he was laying it out.
"Derek thinks we're dead. That buys us time, but not much — he'll want confirmation before he moves on the shares. A body, or a death certificate. We use that."
"Use it how?"
"We let Charleston PD find a body in the river. Not us. There was a boating accident upstream last week, unidentified male, still in the morgue. Enough decomposition that dental records take weeks. I have a contact who can misfile the report just long enough."
I stared at him. "You're going to let people believe some stranger is us."
"I'm going to buy us three weeks where Derek and Serena think they've already won. People get careless when they've already won."
The plan sickened me and made sense in equal measure. I thought about Derek pouring drops into my milk every night for three years, smiling while he did it, and the sickness lost.
"What do you need from me?"
"Access. Your shipyard credentials still work — Derek doesn't know you kept a second set of login keys separate from the joint accounts. I need banking records, the insurance paperwork, and anything with Marcus Shaw's signature from fifteen years ago."
"You want me to go back into that house."
"No. I want you to go into the office. Derek won't be there. He'll be with Serena, celebrating."
I closed my eyes and thought of warm milk, and said yes.
“My husband drove the car into the river with my brother and me trapped inside.”
