My skin crawled.
Maybe the five-hundred-thousand-dollar policy wasn’t the prize.
Maybe it was pocket change.
3. MY HUSBAND VISITS MY GRAVE
Three days after my funeral, I watched my husband visit my grave.
Not in person.
My mother had placed a small wildlife camera in a tree at the edge of Fernhaven Cemetery.
At 7:14 p.m., Preston arrived alone.
He carried white roses.
He stood before the grave.
For almost two minutes, he did nothing.
Then he looked around.
And smiled.
It was not a joyful smile.
It was relief.
Pure relief.
He crouched beside my headstone.
The microphone caught his words.
“Finally.”
My mother stopped the video.
I took the laptop from her.
“Play it.”
“Renee.”
“Play it.”
She did.
Preston brushed dirt from my name.
“Should’ve listened when I told you to stop digging.”
My blood went cold.
He knew I had been investigating something.
The missing transfer.
The irregular bills.
The nights he claimed to be working.
But then he said something stranger.
“You almost ruined everything over forty-two thousand dollars.”
He laughed softly.
“You had no idea what it bought.”
I froze the image.
“What did it buy?”
My mother shook her head.
We needed Fallow Bridge.
I could not appear publicly.
Deborah hired a private investigator named Daniel Quade.
Former state police.
Sixty-two.
Gray beard.
Patient eyes.
He knew only that a family member believed financial fraud had occurred.
My mother did not tell him I was alive until he arrived at the cottage.
When I stepped into the room, he stared at me for a long moment.
“I attended your funeral.”
“So did I.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That’s not funny.”
“No.”
I sat across from him.
“It isn’t.”
We told him everything.
The drink.
The coffin.
The recording.
The false death certificate.
The insurance.
Fallow Bridge.
When we finished, Quade stood and walked to the window.
“You understand that every hour we wait to contact law enforcement creates risk.”
“Yes.”
“You also understand that if Deputy Chief Weller is involved, local law enforcement may be compromised.”
“Yes.”
He turned.
“And you want me to prove enough that we can take this directly to state investigators.”
“Yes.”
He studied me.
“Fine.”
That was all he said.
Within forty-eight hours, Quade learned more about my husband than I had discovered in twelve years of marriage.
Preston had gambling debt.
Not casino gambling.
Private sports betting.
Nearly three hundred thousand dollars over two years.
He had taken loans against our house without telling me.
He had forged my signature on at least one refinancing application.
Sabine had received twenty-four separate payments from him.
Most were between two thousand and six thousand dollars.
My sister and my husband had been financially connected for almost a year.
Whether they were sleeping together, I didn’t yet know.
At that point, I almost hoped they were.
Adultery seemed ordinary compared with murder.
Then Quade called about Fallow Bridge.
“There’s no real company.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a pass-through.”
“For whom?”
