PART 2: A Stranger Let Me Sleep on His Shoulder—Then My Ex-Husband Found Me Before the Plane Even Landed -035

Never directly.

I typed:

Why were you calling the airport?

My thumb hovered.

Then I deleted it.

Another message came.

This is bigger than our divorce.

I sat up.

A moment later:

Check your email. Search “Northbridge.”

I frowned.

Northbridge?

I had never heard the word.

I opened my email account.

There were 18,000 messages because apparently deleting promotional emails had been another responsibility I abandoned during motherhood.

I typed NORTHBRIDGE into the search bar.

Three results appeared.

All old.

The first dated eighteen months earlier.

The sender was Ethan.

Subject line:Northbridge documents

I opened it.

The body contained only one sentence.

Please print these before Friday.

There was an attachment.

A PDF.

I vaguely remembered it.

Ethan sometimes sent documents home when his office printer was being serviced. I had probably printed them and left them on his desk without reading them.

I opened the attachment.

Corporate pages.

Legal language.

Names I didn’t recognize.

I scrolled.

Northbridge Medical Logistics LLC.

My eyes stopped.

Medical.

Then another name caught my attention.

Prescott Health Systems.

I sat completely still.

I read the page again.

Northbridge Medical Logistics.

Prescott Health Systems.

There was a supply contract between them.

Or a proposed one.

I couldn’t understand most of it.

I searched the document for Ethan’s name.

No result.

Then I searched “Walker.”

Nothing.

My phone buzzed.

Another message.

Keep reading. Page 47.

My mouth went dry.

I scrolled.

Page 47 contained a list ofauthorized representatives.

Halfway down was a name I recognized.

Not Ethan.

Samuel R. Baines.

I stared at it.

Sam Baines had been Ethan’s best friend since college.

Best man at our wedding.

Lily called him Uncle Sam.

He had eaten Thanksgiving dinner in our home.

I kept reading.

His title:

Chief Financial Officer, Northbridge Medical Logistics LLC.

“What?”

I whispered aloud.

I had never heard Sam mention Northbridge.

As far as I knew, he worked in commercial insurance.

I reached for my phone.

Ethan had sent another message.

Now search my emails for “Caroline.”

My heart stopped.

Caroline.

Adrian’s sister.

I looked toward the locked hotel door as though Adrian might somehow still be standing outside it.

Slowly, I returned to my inbox.

I typed the name.

Dozens of results appeared.

Most were meaningless promotional emails.

Caroline’s Closet.

Caroline Herrera advertisements.

A newsletter from a restaurant.

Then one message appearedwith a sender I recognized.

Samuel Baines.

Two years and eleven months earlier.

Subject:

C. Prescott file

My palms became damp.

I opened it.

There was no attachment.

Only a short exchange.

Sam had written:

Ethan, stop asking questions about this. I mean it. Delete the spreadsheet I sent you.

Ethan had replied twelve minutes later.

You told me the numbers were routine. They aren’t. If Caroline Prescott’s treatment orders were routed through Northbridge, then I need to know why the invoices don’t match the shipments.

I forgot to breathe.

Sam’s response:

This has nothing to do with her treatment outcome. Don’t make connections that aren’t there.

Ethan:

Then explain the missing inventory.