The sentence changed everything.
“Victoria was never the last.”
Sarah read it twice.
Then she placed the contract inside an evidence sleeve.
“We need to know what it means.”
I already had an idea.
“Audrey.”
Sarah shook her head.
“No.”
“Rachel?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
She looked at the final page.
“There may be another woman.”
We spent the morning searching the records.
The list contained thirty-two names.
Most had been identified.
Some were dead.
Some had disappeared.
But one name remained unexplained.
Nora Bell.
No current address.
No death certificate.
No employment record for the last six years.
No banking activity.
I looked at Sarah.
“She disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three months before Richard met you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Was she connected to him?”
“We don't know.”
Rachel remembered her.
“She was at the same conference.”
“What conference?”
“The one where I met Richard.”
I looked at her.
“Nora was there?”
Rachel nodded.
“She spoke with Martin.”
That was enough.
We reopened the original guest list.
Nora's name had been added by Martin.
Just like Richard's.
Just like the arrangement that had brought Richard into my life.
The difference was that Nora had vanished before the plan reached its next stage.
We found an old photograph.
Nora stood near the entrance to the ballroom.
Beside her was Martin.
Behind them was Eleanor.
The three of them had been there together.
I stared at the photograph.
“She knew.”
“Possibly,” Sarah said.
“Then why disappear?”
Rachel answered.
“Maybe she escaped.”
The thought gave me hope.
We traced the last known address.
An apartment building in Oakland.
The landlord remembered her.
“She left suddenly,” he said.
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No.”
“Did anyone visit her?”
He thought for a moment.
“A man.”
“What man?”
“Dark hair. Expensive coat. He came several times.”
“Richard?”
“No.”
“Martin?”
The landlord frowned.
“Yes.”
We searched the apartment.
It had been vacant for years.
But the landlord had kept a box of mail that had arrived after Nora disappeared.
Inside was one postcard.
No return address.
Only a photograph of a lighthouse.
On the back was an address.
A coastal town two hours north.
We drove there that afternoon.
I expected another trap.
Instead, we found Nora.
She was alive.
She was living under another surname and working at a small bookstore near the harbor.
When she saw Sarah's badge, she immediately locked the front door.
“I knew this would happen eventually.”
“You knew who we were?”
“I knew someone would come.”
She looked at me.
“You're Victoria.”
I nodded.
Her face softened.
“I wondered whether you survived.”
The sentence hit me harder than I expected.
“You knew about me.”
“I knew you were next.”
We sat in the back room of the bookstore.
Nora told us everything.
She had met Martin at the same charity event where Rachel met Richard.
Martin had approached her first.
He had asked about her career.
Her finances.
Her family.
Then he introduced her to Richard.
“She realized something was wrong when Richard knew information she had never told him.”
“What did she do?”
“I confronted Martin.”
Nora said Martin had threatened her.
Not directly.
He had shown her photographs of her younger brother.
He knew where he worked.
Where he lived.
What time he left home.
“So I disappeared.”
She changed her name.
Moved.
Stopped using her old accounts.
She thought she was safe.
Then, years later, she saw my photograph online.
Richard had posted our engagement.
“I knew immediately.”
“Why didn't you contact me?”
“I was afraid.”
I couldn't blame her.
“What did you know?”
Nora took a breath.
“Richard wasn't the person running the system.”
“Eleanor.”
“Yes.”
“And Martin.”
“He managed it.”
“What did Richard do?”
“He recruited the women.”
The word made me sick.
“Like a salesman.”
“Exactly.”
I thought about our first meeting.
The flowers.
The attention.
The carefully remembered details.
It had all been recruitment.
“What happened to the others?”
“Some were never targets.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some were used to test the system.”
I stared at her.
“Test it?”
“Richard would date them. He would collect information. If the circumstances were right, they became candidates.”
The thirty-two names weren't thirty-two planned murders.
They were a pool.
A catalog.
A selection process.
Nora looked at me.
“You were selected because you fit every requirement.”
I felt no surprise anymore.
Only anger.
“What requirement?”
“Trustworthy. Financially stable. Limited family interference. Strong enough to maintain a respectable marriage but vulnerable enough to be isolated.”
I swallowed.
“And Audrey?”
“An exception.”
“Because of the pregnancy?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Nora hesitated.
“Because Richard wanted her.”
I stared at her.
“He actually wanted something.”
“Yes.”
“But he still used her.”
“Yes.”
She looked down.
“That's what made him dangerous. He started believing he could have both lives.”
Richard's affair had not been part of Eleanor's original plan.
It had become Richard's rebellion.
That explained why Eleanor had sounded almost contemptuous when she spoke of Audrey.
Richard had stepped outside the structure.
But he had not escaped it.
Nora handed Sarah a flash drive.
“This contains the records I copied before I disappeared.”
Sarah took it.
“What records?”
“Payments. Names. Agreements. Communications.”
“Why didn't you give these to police?”
“Because Martin had someone inside.”
Sarah looked up.
“Who?”
Nora shook her head.
“I never learned the name.”
The room went silent.
There was one final folder on the drive.
Sarah opened it.
A list of payments.
One recipient appeared repeatedly.
Not Martin.
Not Richard.
A lawyer.
Daniel Cross.
Sarah's expression changed.
“Who is that?”
Nora answered.
“He represented Eleanor.”
I looked at Sarah.
“Could he be the person inside?”
“We need to find out.”
That night, Daniel Cross disappeared.
His office was empty.
His house was empty.
His car was abandoned.
But his assistant gave Sarah one thing.
A message Daniel had left before leaving.
It was addressed to me.
“I am sorry. I thought I was protecting my family.”
The rest was a location.
A church.
The same church where Richard and I had been married.
I stared at the address.
The pattern was becoming unbearable.
Every place that had once represented my life had been touched by them.
The charity dinner.
My marriage.
My home.
My finances.
My medical records.
Now the church.
They had taken ordinary places and turned them into pieces of their machinery.
I looked at Sarah.
“We go tonight.”
She nodded.
This time, I wasn't afraid of what we'd find.
I was afraid of what we wouldn't.
Because the deeper we went, the clearer one thing became.
Richard had been lying to me for years.
But someone had been lying to Richard too.
And if Daniel had run because he feared his family would be harmed, then the person who controlled this system still had enough power to frighten everyone around it.
We reached the church after midnight.
The doors were unlocked.
Inside, a single light burned near the altar.
A man sat in the front pew.
Daniel Cross.
He looked exhausted.
He turned when I entered.
“Victoria,” he said.
Then he whispered:
“You need to know what happened to the money after Richard died.”
I stopped.
“Richard isn't dead.”
Daniel stared at me.
“I know.”
“Then what do you mean?”
He looked toward the dark balcony.
“Because someone is about to make him disappear.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: The Man Who Had Helped Build Richard’s Defense Finally Told the Truth, but His Confession Exposed a Threat None of Us Expected
The Anniversary Message Arrived Just as I Saw My Husband Holding Another Woman Like He Had Nothing Left to Hide
Part 10 of 12
