Chapter 6
Morning came.
The signature report arrived.
Harrison opened it at the kitchen table.
He read it once.
Then twice.
A slow smile spread across his face.
“Perfect,” he said. “Every signature. Every document. All forgeries. The expert says they were signed by someone else. Someone with a different dominant hand and stroke pattern.”
He looked up at me.
“Richard didn’t just forge your signature. He paid someone else to do it. Which means… he has a co-conspirator inside his company. Someone with access to all the documents.”
“Vanessa?” I said.
“Possibly,” Harrison said. “Or someone else. Someone close. Someone he trusts.”
He folded the report.
“Time to serve him. Everything. The lawsuit. The evidence. The restraining order enforcement. We hit him all at once.”
Harrison left with the process servers.
I stayed inside with two security officers.
Waiting.
An hour passed.
Then two.
My phone rang.
Harrison.
“Khloe,” he said, his voice tight. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Richard left the city early this morning,” Harrison said. “Private jet. Filed a flight plan for the Caribbean three hours before the hearing ended. He’s already halfway there.”
My heart sank.
“He’s running.”
“He’s fleeing,” Harrison corrected. “Taking everything he can access. Cash. Negotiable securities. Jewelry. He stripped the accounts overnight.”
“What about Vanessa?”
“Vanessa is gone too,” Harrison said. “Failed to appear at her own preliminary hearing this morning. She’s with him.”
I gripped the phone.
“They’re escaping together.”
“They think they can disappear,” Harrison said. “But they made one mistake. Richard can sell assets. He can transfer money. But he cannot sell the properties with forged signatures without the buyer doing due diligence. And he cannot touch the trust fund accounts. Those are untouchable without court approval.”
“He left half of it behind,” I said.
“More than half,” Harrison said. “And he left something else too. I’ve been to his office. His computer is still there. His personal files. He packed quickly, Khloe. In a panic. Which means he didn’t cover everything.”
“What did you find?”
Harrison paused.
“Something he didn’t want anyone to see. A hidden safe behind his desk. Opened with a combination only he knew. The locksmith got it open twenty minutes ago.”
My breath caught.
“What’s inside?”
“Hard drives,” Harrison said. “Backup records. And a notebook. Handwritten. Names. Dates. Payments. Everything.”
“Payments to who?”
“To people in positions of power,” Harrison said quietly. “Judges. Police officers. Bank managers. Richard has been paying people off for years. Including the judge assigned to your divorce case.”
I felt sick.
“That’s why he wasn’t afraid,” I whispered. “He thought he owned the judge.”
“He did,” Harrison said. “Until this morning. I’ve already filed the recusal motion. I have proof of the payments. The judge is stepping aside. And the district attorney is opening a corruption investigation.”
He paused.
“But Khloe… there’s more. Notes about the courthouse. Notes about Vanessa. And one entry dated the day of your miscarriage.”
My heart stopped.
“What does it say?”
Harrison read slowly.
“‘Stress protocol effective. Result expected within weeks. Plan B unnecessary. Vanessa to oversee.’”
I sat down hard on the bed.
“Vanessa was there,” I whispered. “She helped him.”
“She helped him cause the miscarriage,” Harrison said, his voice shaking with rage. “Deliberately. Systematically. They tortured you until you lost that baby. And then they laughed about it.”
Tears streamed down my face.
Not from sadness.
From cold, hard anger.
“They killed my baby,” I said. “Together.”
“And now they’re running,” Harrison said. “But they left the evidence. Every payment. Every instruction. Every confession. Richard thought he could buy his way out of anything. But he got greedy. And careless.”
He took a breath.
“I’m calling the FBI. Cross-border flight. Fraud. Racketeering. Murder conspiracy. They won’t get far. Every port. Every airport. Every bank account. Frozen. Watched. They’re running into a net.”
I stood up.
My hand rested on my belly.
My daughter kicked.
Strong.
Alive.
“Let them run,” I said. “Every mile they fly… every hour they hide… it only proves their guilt. When they finally get caught… it will be worse.”
Harrison was quiet.
“Khloe… there’s one more thing. Something in the notebook. Richard wrote that if he ever had to run… he had insurance. Something to trade for immunity. Something to hold over everyone’s head.”
“What?”
“He didn’t say,” Harrison said. “Only that it’s somewhere you would never look. And that when the time comes… everyone will be shocked.”
My blood ran cold.
“What could be worse than everything we already know?”
“I don’t know,” Harrison said. “But I’m going to find out. Stay inside. Lock every door. I’m coming back now. And Khloe… be ready. Because if Richard left insurance… he left it behind for a reason. And I have a terrible feeling he left it somewhere close to you.”
He hung up.
I stood in the middle of the room.
Somewhere I would never look.
Richard had been in every room I had ever lived in.
He knew what I touched.
What I avoided.
What I ignored.
My eyes traveled around the condominium.
Nothing seemed out of place.
Then I looked at the box Harrison had brought from the estate.
Personal items.
Books.
Decorations.
Things I had barely looked at.
I walked over.
And lifted the heavy brass lamp Richard had given me for our fifth anniversary.
The one I had never liked.
The one I had never touched.
Beneath it, taped to the bottom of the box…
Was a small, silver key.
And a note.
May you like
Written in Richard’s handwriting.
“Found it, have you? Good. Now you have everything you need to destroy me. But remember, Khloe… I know where the bodies are buried. And so does she.”
