Chapter 4 - THE SHATTERED ILLUSION
The digital clock on the hospital wall blinked 2:14 PM. Every passing minute felt like a physical weight pressing down on my shattered ribs.
I was on speakerphone with Maya. Victoria Sterling sat in the leather chair, her laptop open, typing furiously as she prepared the emergency injunctions we would file the moment we had the evidence.
"Okay, I'm parked two blocks down," Maya’s voice crackled through the phone speaker. The tension in her voice was palpable, a tight, nervous wire. "Caleb's car isn't in the driveway. The lights are off."
"He has a standing Tuesday afternoon golf game with his partners at the firm," I said, tracing the pattern of the hospital blanket with a trembling finger. "He never misses it. He usually leaves around one and doesn't get back until five. You should have at least two hours."
"Should," Maya repeated darkly. "I don't like 'should'."
"Maya, if you see his car pull up, you drop everything and run out the back door," I instructed, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm. "Don't confront him. Just run. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you, big sis. I'm approaching the back patio now."
The line went silent, save for the faint sound of wind and the rustle of leaves as Maya navigated the suburban backyard I had painstakingly landscaped. I closed my eyes, visualizing her movements. Past the rose bushes, up the wooden steps, to the heavy sliding glass door.
"The spare key worked," Maya whispered a minute later. "I'm in the kitchen."
"Is Emma there?" I asked, a sudden spike of terror hitting me. Caleb had told me his mother was watching Emma, but he was a pathological liar.
"House is dead quiet. Emma's not here," Maya confirmed. "Okay, moving to the home office. Ground floor, past the half-bath, right?"
"Yes. The door might be locked. If it is, use a credit card on the latch. He installed a cheap interior lock, it doesn't have a deadbolt."
There was a series of scraping sounds over the phone, followed by a satisfying click.
"I'm in," Maya breathed. "Wow. This guy really loves himself, doesn't he? It looks like a villain's lair in here. Dark mahogany, leather everywhere, and about fifty framed certificates of his own ego."
"Focus, Maya," Victoria interjected, leaning toward the phone. "We are looking for the bottom right desk drawer. The key should be in the pen cup on the desk."
"Checking the pen cup..." I heard the sound of pens rattling. "Nothing. No key."
My stomach dropped. "He moved it. Damn it, he moved it."
"Hang on," Maya said. "He’s a creature of habit, right? Arrogant guys like this don't hide things in clever places, they hide them in places they think they own. Let me look around."
The next three minutes were agonizing. I listened to drawers opening and closing, books being shifted on shelves, the rustle of papers. Every sound felt amplified, a ticking time bomb counting down to Caleb's unexpected return.
"Found it," Maya announced triumphantly. "It was taped underneath the center drawer. Classic."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Open the bottom drawer. Tell me what's inside."
I heard the small metallic slide of the key turning in the lock. The heavy wooden drawer slid open on its tracks.
"Okay," Maya said, her voice dropping to a hushed, shocked whisper. "Holy hell, Becca. You weren't kidding."
"What do you see?" Victoria demanded.
"There's a black leather ledger," Maya reported. "And a stack of flash drives. Five of them. And a small, silver safety deposit box key. But that's not all. There's a file folder here. Thick. It has your name on it."
"My name?" I asked, a cold chill washing over my skin. "Open it."
I heard the rustle of thick paper. Then, Maya gasped. It wasn't a gasp of surprise; it was a sharp, jagged intake of breath driven by pure horror.
"Maya? What is it?" I demanded, trying to sit up, a blinding flash of pain shooting through my broken legs.
"Becca..." Maya’s voice was trembling violently now. "It's... it's life insurance policies. Three of them. All taken out in the last eighteen months. Totaling over five million dollars. Caleb is the sole beneficiary. And there are printouts here... internet searches. 'How to tamper with brake lines.' 'Fatal car accident statistics.' 'Undetectable poisons'."
The hospital room spun. The steady beep of my heart monitor morphed into a high-pitched, continuous drone in my ears. The air was sucked out of my lungs.
The car crash.
It hadn't been a rainy afternoon accident. My brakes had failed. I had slammed my foot on the pedal as I approached the intersection, and the pedal had gone straight to the floor, useless, empty. I had swerved to avoid a minivan carrying children and wrapped my car around a concrete bridge pillar instead. The police had cited severe weather conditions and a likely mechanical failure.
It wasn't mechanical failure. It was attempted murder.
Caleb had tried to kill me. And when he failed, when I survived with shattered legs, he had come to the hospital to finish the job by signing me out and taking me home, where I would be helpless, entirely at his mercy.
"Get out," Victoria snapped, her voice cutting through my shock like a whip. "Maya, grab the ledger, the flash drives, the key, and that folder. Put them in your bag and get out of that house immediately. He didn't just commit financial fraud; he committed attempted homicide. We are elevating this to the police."
"Grabbing them now," Maya said, the sound of frantic shuffling filling the speaker.
Then, a new sound echoed through the phone. A sound that made my blood run instantly cold.
The heavy, mechanical hum of the garage door opening.
"He's home," Maya panicked, her voice a terrified squeak. "Oh my god, he's home early."
"Maya, run! Go out the front door!" I screamed, ignoring the pain in my ribs.
"I can't, the home office is right next to the garage entry door, he'll see me!" she whispered frantically. "I'm hiding in the closet."
"No!" Victoria shouted. "Do not let yourself be trapped in a confined space with a man we now know is a violent sociopath. Break the window if you have to. Move!"
I heard the heavy thud of the interior garage door slamming shut. Caleb’s heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor. He was walking toward the office.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" Caleb’s voice roared through the phone, distorted and terrifying.
He had caught her.
"Get away from me!" Maya screamed.
There was a loud crash, the sound of a lamp shattering, a heavy thud of bodies colliding against drywall.
"Maya!" I shrieked, helpless in my bed, tears streaming down my face. "Maya, run!"
"You little bitch!" Caleb roared.
More crashing. A breathless struggle. Then, the sound of a heavy door slamming open, and rapid, frantic footsteps pounding across the hardwood floor.
"I'm out! I'm out!" Maya yelled into the phone, the sound of the wind rushing past her as she ran down the street. "I got the bag! He grabbed my jacket, but I slipped out of it. I'm running to the car!"
"Drive straight to the hospital," Victoria ordered, slamming her laptop shut. "Do not go to the police station yet. We need to secure the evidence chain. I am calling the District Attorney right now. Drive fast, and make sure he isn't following you."
"I'm in the car. Locking the doors. Speeding off," Maya said, her breath ragged, but safe.
I collapsed back into the hospital pillows, my body shaking uncontrollably. Caleb had tried to kill me. The man I had slept next to for eleven years, the father of my child, had researched how to sever my brake lines so he could collect a five-million-dollar payout and walk away a wealthy, grieving widower.
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"Victoria," I gasped, looking at the lawyer, my terror rapidly morphing into a cold, lethal, white-hot rage. "He tried to murder me. But he failed. And now he knows we have his documents."
"Which means he is going to panic," Victoria said, dialing a number on her phone, her eyes gleaming with the thrill of the hunt. "And panicked men make fatal mistakes. We are not just going to divorce Caleb Davis, Rebecca. We are going to lock him in a cage for the rest of his miserable life."
