Chapter 4 - THE MISTRESS CALLED ME FIRSTI met Sabrina Cole forty-eight hours after finding her in my bed.
Not because I forgave her.
Not because I trusted her.
Because when someone tells you your husband is destroying evidence, you listen.
Martin insisted the meeting take place at his office in Stamford, with Naomi present.
Sabrina arrived ten minutes early.
She looked completely different from the woman I had seen beneath my sheets.
No makeup.
Hair pulled into a low ponytail.
Gray sweatshirt.
Dark circles under her eyes.
She stopped when she saw me.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then her eyes dropped to the stroller beside me.
Maisie was asleep.
“I’m sorry,” Sabrina whispered.
I kept my face still.
“Sit down.”
She did.
Martin placed a recorder on the conference table.
“With everyone’s consent, I’d like to record this conversation.”
Sabrina nodded.
I nodded too.
Martin began.
“Ms. Cole, explain how you obtained the photograph you sent Mrs. Whitmore.”
Sabrina rubbed her palms against her jeans.
“Derek left his personal laptop at my apartment three weeks ago.”
“You still have it?”
“No. He took it Sunday.”
“Did you access it without permission?”
“He gave me the password months ago. He asked me to pull a restaurant confirmation from his email. After that, the browser stayed logged in.”
Martin’s face revealed nothing.
“Why did you photograph the spreadsheet?”
“Because I got suspicious.”
“About?”
“Everything.”
She looked at me.
“I know you think I knew what I was doing.”
“You were sleeping with my husband.”
“Yes.”
The directness surprised me.
“I knew he was married when we first met,” she continued. “I’m not going to insult you by pretending otherwise.”
“Good.”
“But he told me you’d been separated privately for almost a year because your father was sick. He said you were staying married publicly until some trust issue was settled.”
“My father died eighteen months ago.”
“I know that now.”
“You attended his memorial reception.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
That memory hit like a slap.
I had shaken her hand at my father’s memorial.
She had been sleeping with Derek then.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
I hated those words.
“Tell me what matters.”
She swallowed.
“Derek said the baby wasn’t his.”
The room disappeared for half a second.
“What?”
“He told me you became pregnant through IVF using an embryo created before the separation.”
I stared at her.
It was such a grotesquely elaborate lie that I almost admired the architecture.
“Maisie was conceived naturally.”
Sabrina nodded.
“I figured that out.”
“When?”
“Five days ago.”
The day I came home.
She looked toward the window.
“That morning, Evelyn came over before you arrived. Derek and I were upstairs. I heard them arguing downstairs.”
“About what?”
“You.”
My fingers tightened around each other.
Sabrina continued.
“Evelyn told him you might be discharged early. Derek said the hospital portal still showed another day.”
A chill moved through me.
“How did he have access to my hospital portal?”
“You gave him access?”
I had.
During pregnancy.
So he could see appointment schedules and test results.
He had used my medical information to schedule his affair.
Martin wrote something down.
“What happened next?” he asked.
“Evelyn said Sabrina—that’s me—needed to leave.”
I stared.
“She knew you were there?”
“Yes.”
“For how long has she known?”
“Almost from the beginning.”
My stomach tightened.
Sabrina’s voice dropped.
“She didn’t approve at first.”
“How comforting.”
“She changed after Derek told her you were planning to divorce him and take the company.”
“I have never worked at his company.”
“I know.”
“Continue.”
“She started telling me I was better suited for Derek.”
That sounded exactly like Evelyn.
“Did she ever contact you separately?”
“Yes.”
Sabrina unlocked her phone.
“I saved everything.”
She placed it on the table.
Messages filled the screen.
EVELYN: Audrey is very fragile. Do not contact Derek tonight. She is suspicious.
Another.
EVELYN: Be patient. Once the child is born, matters can move forward.
Another.
EVELYN: He needs someone who understands the demands of his position. Audrey never has.
I read until my hands began shaking.
One message was dated the night I went into labor.
9:18 p.m.
EVELYN: Audrey has been admitted. You and Derek should stay away from Westbridge tonight. I will handle any questions tomorrow.
I looked up.
“Where was he?”
Sabrina’s face collapsed.
“With me.”
“Where?”
“Atlantic City.”
The answer was almost absurd.
My husband had ignored seventeen calls while I labored because he was in a casino hotel with his mistress.
“He told me you were having a scheduled prenatal observation,” she said quickly. “He said your mother was with you.”
“My mother has been dead since I was nineteen.”
Sabrina covered her mouth.
For the first time, I understood just how many lies Derek had told.
He had not created one alternate reality.
He had created dozens.
Different versions for different people.
Martin redirected the conversation.
“The spreadsheet.”
Sabrina nodded.
“After Audrey came home, I left. Derek called me later and blamed everything on her.”
“Of course he did,” Claire said from the corner.
Martin had initially discouraged Claire from attending, but I insisted.
I needed one person in that room who cared about me without billing by the hour.
Sabrina continued.
“He said Audrey had manipulated some paperwork to make herself look rich.”
Claire actually laughed.
Sabrina looked embarrassed.
“I believed him for about two hours.”
“What changed?” I asked.
“He told me not to go to my apartment.”
“Why?”
“He said company security might come looking for his laptop.”
Martin leaned forward.
“And that worried you.”
“Yes. Because why would anyone care about his laptop over an affair?”
Exactly.
“So I opened it.”
She found a spreadsheet under a folder labeled WDI Forecasting.
Payments to consulting firms.
Travel reimbursements.
Transfers.
Evelyn’s company.
Martin asked, “Did you copy the file?”
Sabrina reached into her purse.
Derek’s face would have exploded if he’d seen what she placed on the table.
A small flash drive.
“Yes.”
Martin did not touch it.
“Naomi, contact forensic.”
Naomi stood.
Sabrina looked at me.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“There always is,” I said.
“Derek had been talking about divorce.”
“I gathered that.”
“He told me he was waiting until after the baby was born.”
Something about her tone changed.
“Why?”
“He said timing mattered financially.”
Martin stopped writing.
“What exactly did he say?”
Sabrina closed her eyes, remembering.
“He said, ‘Once the kid arrives, Audrey becomes easier to control because she won’t risk custody.’”
My stomach turned.
Claire muttered, “Son of a—”
Martin raised one hand.
“Anything else?”
“He said his mother had found a way to make sure Audrey couldn’t ‘pull the trust card.’”
I looked at Martin.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Sabrina took a breath.
“There’s an email folder.”
“Where?”
“His account.”
“What was it called?”
“Bluebird.”
My chest tightened.
Bluebird was what my father called me when I was little.
Nobody knew that except Derek.
And a few old family friends.
“What was in it?”
“I only saw one email. It mentioned changing beneficiary records.”
Martin went perfectly still.
I looked at him.
“What beneficiary records?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On which records he had access to.”
For the first time, Martin looked genuinely alarmed.
He excused himself and left with Naomi.
Claire walked to the stroller and adjusted Maisie’s blanket.
Sabrina remained seated across from me.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
“I won’t.”
She nodded.
“But I am sorry.”
I studied her.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Old enough to know married means married.”
“Yes.”
No excuse.
That made her easier to tolerate.
I leaned back.
“Why help me?”
Her eyes hardened.
“Because after you left, Derek told me to go home and wait. I asked whether he still wanted us to be together.”
“And?”
“He laughed.”
The pain in her face was real.
“He told me I had become ‘a liability.’”
I said nothing.
“He said if anyone asked, I had pursued him and he had tried to end it.”
Now I understood.
Derek had betrayed the wrong two women in the same morning.
Before I could respond, Martin returned.
He shut the conference-room door.
Then locked it.
My heartbeat changed.
“What happened?”
He placed a printout in front of me.
“Your father’s trust administrator received a request six months ago.”
“For what?”
“To change the secondary beneficiary designation on several non-revocable assets.”
“Who requested it?”
“The form bears your electronic signature.”
I stared at him.
“I never signed anything.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I witnessed your actual beneficiary documents after Maisie’s pregnancy was confirmed.”
He turned another page.
“The signature certificate on this request originated from an IP address registered to Whitmore Development Group.”
Sabrina whispered something under her breath.
I barely heard her.
“Who benefits?”
I asked.
Martin looked at me.
“The attempted amendment would have removed any future child from secondary protection until age twenty-five.”
“Why?”
“And replaced that interest temporarily with your spouse.”
I felt the blood leave my face.
If something happened to me before Maisie turned twenty-five—
Derek would have controlled assets my father intended for my daughter.
Claire came beside me.
Martin spoke carefully.
“The amendment was rejected. The trust cannot be modified that way without independent verification.”
“So he failed.”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you look worried?”
Martin pushed the final page toward me.
“Because this was not the only request.”
There were four.
Four separate attempts.
Insurance.
Property.
A brokerage account.
A private investment trust.
All carrying my electronic signature.
All submitted during the last eight months.
My pregnancy.
My third trimester.
While Derek smiled in nursery photos and rubbed my stomach at family dinners.
I stared at the paperwork until the words stopped looking like English.
Then my phone rang.
Derek.
I almost ignored it.
Martin shook his head.
“Answer.”
I put him on speaker.
“Audrey,” Derek said.
His voice sounded controlled.
Too controlled.
“You need to stop whatever you’re doing.”
I said nothing.
“I know Sabrina contacted you.”
Still nothing.
“She stole confidential company information.”
Martin silently motioned for me to continue.
“What do you want, Derek?”
“I want my wife to come home so we can resolve this before strangers destroy our family.”
“Our family was in labor while you were in Atlantic City.”
Silence.
Then his voice hardened.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I looked at Sabrina.
She looked back.
“I know about Bluebird.”
The silence that followed was completely different.
Cold.
Terrified.
Finally Derek whispered:
“What did you say?”
“Bluebird.”
His breathing changed.
“Audrey, listen carefully. Do not open anything Sabrina gave you.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t understand what you’re looking at.”
“You forged my signature.”
“No.”
“Four times.”
“Audrey—”
“And you tried to put yourself between my daughter and her inheritance.”
His mask shattered.
“You think this is all yours because Daddy handed it to you?”
Everyone in the room froze.
There he was.
The man beneath the charming husband.
“You never built anything,” Derek snapped. “You inherited your whole life.”
“And you stole yours.”
He hung up.
Thirty seconds later, Martin’s assistant rushed into the room.
“Mr. Franklin?”
“Yes?”
“There are police downstairs.”
I stood instinctively.
“Why?”
She looked at Sabrina.
“They’re here for Ms. Cole.”
Sabrina went white.
“For what?”
The assistant swallowed.
“Whitmore Development reported a theft of confidential corporate property.”
Derek had made his first move.
But when Martin looked at me, I knew something Derek had not considered.
He thought calling the police would frighten Sabrina into silence.
Instead, he had just created an official investigation.
May you like
And investigators ask questions.
Lots of them.
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