PART 2: A Stranger Let Me Sleep on His Shoulder—Then My Ex-Husband Found Me Before the Plane Even Landed -035
There were no more messages.
I read the exchange three times.
Then a fourth.
Caroline Prescott.
Treatment orders.
Northbridge.
Missing inventory.
My first thought was that it had to be a coincidence.
Prescott was a common enoughsurname.
Except Adrian had told me his sister’s name only hours earlier.
Caroline.
Leukemia.
And Prescott Health was listed in the Northbridge documents.
My phone rang.
Ethan.
This time I answered.
Neither of us spoke at first.
Then he said, “Elena?”
I nearly hung up at the sound of his voice.
Five years of marriage lived inside two syllables.
Good mornings.
Arguments.
Birthday dinners.
Lily’s first cry in the delivery room.
Nights waiting for him to come home.
The sound of keys turning in a lock.
“Why is Caroline Prescott in your email?”
Silence.
Then Ethan exhaled.
“You found it.”
“You told me to.”
“I wasn’t sure you still had those messages.”
“What is Northbridge?”
“Elena—”
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say my name like you’re preparing me for something.”
A pause.
“I’m not.”
“You always do.”
He didn’t answer.
I stood and walked toward the window.
Below me,cars moved along the freeway like red and white beads of light.
“What is Northbridge?” I repeated.
“A medical distribution company.”
“Sam’s company?”
“Partly.”
“Partly?”
“He was CFO. I don’t know how much ownership he had.”
“You knew?”
“Not at first.”
“And what did Caroline Prescott have to do with it?”
Another long silence.
“Ethan.”
“She was a patient in a Prescott Health hospital.”
“I know that.”
“You know?”
“Adrian told me his sister died of leukemia.”
I heard movement on Ethan’s end.
“Elena, listen carefully. Do not tell Prescott about those emails yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know who around him is involved.”
My skin prickled.
“Involved in what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to believe documents.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“You’ve spent months hiding things from me, Ethan.”
“I know.”
“You changed the locks.”
“I know.”
“You emptied ouraccount.”
“I didn’t empty it.”
“You moved the money somewhere I couldn’t access.”
“Yes.”
“Which is another way of saying you took it.”
His voice hardened slightly.
“No. It isn’t.”
“There you are.”
“What?”
“That tone. The one where you explain reality to me.”
“Elena, I’m not trying to—”
“Yes, you are.”
I closed my eyes.
“I cannot do this with you anymore.”
“I know.”
His voice was quieter now.
“And I know saying that doesn’t fix anything.”
That stopped me.
This didn’t sound like Ethan.
Or perhaps it did.
Perhaps I simply hadn’t heard this version of him in a very long time.
“Why are you looking for me?”
“Because someone photographed you with Adrian Prescott.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I saw the picture. Then Sam called me.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Sam called you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether you knew Prescott.”I didn’t.”
“I told him that.”
“And?”
“And Sam didn’t believe me.”
A sound came from the crib.
I turned.
Lily shifted beneath her blanket but remained asleep.
“What does Sam have to do with my marriage?” I whispered.
“That’s complicated.”
“Try.”
Ethan was silent for so long I thought the call had dropped.
Then he said, “The woman in the pictures.”
Every muscle in my body went still.
“What woman?”
“The pictures you saw online. The ones of me.”
My mouth went dry.
The photographs that had ended our marriage.
Ethan at a restaurant with a beautiful dark-haired woman.
Ethan leaving a hotel lobby with his hand at her back.
