Chapter 2 - The Woman Before Me
Mason didn’t rush.
That was one of the reasons I trusted him.
He stood beside my bed and explained that Emily Morgan had disappeared four years earlier, after less than two years of marriage to Ethan. Her case had been treated as a voluntary missing-person matter, not a homicide.
“She told one friend she was afraid of Ethan,” he said. “And afraid of his mother.”
“What happened?”
“That depends on which story you believe.”
According to Ethan, Emily had become erratic, depressed, and secretive. According to Margaret, Emily was unstable and had run off with another man after draining part of a family account.
But Emily’s best friend told a different story. She said Emily had been talking about divorce, hidden debt, and strange pressure from Margaret to sign financial documents. A week later, she vanished.
“And now I fall from the same balcony,” I said.
Mason nodded.
“You told us someone shoved you. Then Margaret tried to suffocate you in a hospital room. That’s enough for me to reopen everything.”
Pain spread down my ribs as I tried to breathe evenly.
“I found messages on Ethan’s phone,” I told him. “From another woman.”
“What kind of messages?”
“I thought it was an affair. They were secretive. Tense. She kept asking when he was going to ‘fix it.’”
Mason’s eyes sharpened.
“Do you still have screenshots?”
“I sent them to my sister, Julia, the night I confronted him.”
That mattered. Time stamps mattered. Independent copies mattered.
I told Mason everything: Ethan’s calm smile when I accused him, Margaret’s hatred, the shove, the blur of sky and brick and pavement rushing up.
When I finished, he closed Emily’s file.
“Your husband is in the waiting area with his attorney. He says his mother is mentally unwell and acted alone.”
I actually laughed, though it hurt.
“That didn’t take long.”
“No,” Mason said. “It didn’t.”
Then he leaned closer.
“Claire, if Ethan thinks throwing Margaret overboard will save him, he’s already making mistakes.”
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For the first time since waking in that cast, I felt something other than pain.
I felt the case beginning to move.
