Chapter 4 - The Sister's Secret
I used the tiny camera on my new burner phone to take high-resolution photographs of every single piece of evidence inside the safe.
I carefully placed the wedding band and the forged passports back into their exact, original positions.
Closing the heavy steel door, I locked the safe and silently adjusted the abstract painting to cover it perfectly.
I crept back into the master bedroom just as the morning sun began to bleed through the expensive curtains.
Julian woke up an hour later, completely convinced that his toxic tea had kept me deeply sedated all night.
He kissed my cheek, grabbed his expensive leather briefcase, and told me he had a very long day of corporate meetings.
As soon as his luxury sedan disappeared down the long, winding driveway, I locked every single door in the house.
I pulled out the burner phone and dialed the number Elena had securely encrypted for me the night before.
She had managed to track down the estranged sister of Julian’s first wife, a woman named Clara.
Clara had spent the last ten years desperately trying to prove that Julian had murdered her sister on their honeymoon.
I arranged a completely secret meeting with Clara at a busy, public coffee shop on the other side of the city.
I wore a massive pair of dark sunglasses and a thick scarf, terrified that Julian might have hired private investigators to follow me.
When Clara walked into the café, I immediately recognized the heavy, absolute sorrow etched deeply into her aging face.
She sat down across from me, her eyes widening in sheer terror when she saw my heavily pregnant stomach.
"You need to run away from him today, before he takes you on a secluded vacation," Clara whispered intensely.
"He took my sister to a private cabin in the mountains, and she never came back down."
Clara explained that Julian had completely drained her sister's trust fund mere days before the fatal "hiking accident."
He had cremated the body almost instantly, completely destroying any physical evidence of foul play before the police could investigate.
She handed me a thick, yellowed envelope containing all the police reports and financial records she had illegally gathered.
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"He is a ghost, completely erasing his past whenever the money finally runs dry," Clara warned me.
I held her trembling hand across the table, promising her that this monster was finally going to face absolute justice.
