Chapter 10 - THE MESSAGE ON RYAN’S PHONEClaire had told me her mother was dead.
Not recently.
Since the day we met.
She described a childhood shaped by loss.
A father who disappeared.
A mother who died when Claire was nineteen.
I had never questioned it.
Why would anyone lie about something like that?
Ryan unlocked his phone for the police.
He opened a message thread saved under the initials O.G.
The photograph beside the contact showed a woman in her late fifties with pale blonde hair and Claire’s blue eyes.
The messages went back nearly a year.
OLIVIA: Did he sign?
CLAIRE: Not yet.
OLIVIA: Stop asking softly.
RYAN: We need more time.
OLIVIA: The baby gives us leverage. Use it.
I felt cold.
Ryan scrolled farther.
There were discussions about the mansion.
The trust.
My company shares.
Even my travel calendar.
“They knew when I would be away,” I said.
Ryan lowered his head.
“I gave Claire access to my schedule,” I added. “She passed it to you.”
He nodded.
One detective photographed the messages.
“Why were you involved?” she asked Ryan.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
“At first, I thought Claire wanted financial independence before leaving Daniel.”
“With five million dollars?”
“She said it represented her contribution to the marriage.”
“And later?”
Ryan looked toward the door through which Claire had left.
“Later, she told me the baby was mine.”
The detective studied him.
“So you helped steal from the child’s presumed father?”
Ryan flinched.
“I told myself Daniel had so much money he wouldn’t notice.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because that sentence had been used to justify every theft I had encountered in business.
He has enough.
He won’t notice.
He owes us.
Ryan handed the detective his phone.
As he did, a new message appeared.
OLIVIA: SHE IS AT THE CLINIC. DID DANIEL HEAR EVERYTHING?
The detective immediately typed a response from Ryan’s phone.
RYAN: Not everything. What should I destroy?
The answer arrived thirty seconds later.
OLIVIA: The prenatal file and the mirror backup. Then leave.
The detective looked at me.
“Do you know where the mirror backup is stored?”
“Yes.”
“Can she access it remotely?”
“Not anymore.”
Ryan’s phone vibrated again.
OLIVIA: Claire says Daniel has the transfer authorization. Get it back before the police arrive.
The detective placed the phone into an evidence bag.
“They already arrived,” she said.
Then my attorney called again.
“We traced the fifth transfer,” he told me. “It didn’t go to Nevada.”
“Where did it go?”
“A private medical laboratory in Phoenix.”
May you like
I looked at the prenatal report.
The paper naming Ryan as the father had come from the same laboratory.
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