My sister, an airline pilot, called me. “I need to ask you something strange. Your husband—is he home right now?” “Yes,” I replied.
“He’s sitting in the living room.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “That can’t be true, because I’m watching him with another woman right now.”
“They just boarded my flight to Paris.” Just then, I heard the door open behind me. “I need to ask you something strange.”
“Your husband—is he home right now?” My sister Kaylee’s voice crackled through the phone from the cockpit of United Flight 447. I was standing in our Manhattan apartment kitchen, watching Aiden through the doorway as he sat reading his morning paper.
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“He’s sitting in the living room.” The silence that followed felt wrong. Then Kaylee whispered the words that shattered my entire world.
“That can’t be true, because I’m watching him with another woman right now.” They just boarded my flight to Paris. Behind me, I heard footsteps.
Aiden walked into the kitchen, coffee mug in hand, smiling at me with the same expression he’d worn every morning for seven years. The coffee mug in his hand was the one I’d bought him for his 40th birthday. White ceramic with “World’s Most Adequate Husband” printed in black letters.
He’d laughed when he opened it, said it was perfect because he never trusted anyone who claimed to be the best at anything. That was three years ago, back when his self-deprecating humor felt charming instead of calculated. “Who’s calling so early?” Aiden asked, moving toward the coffee maker for a refill.
His Saturday morning routine never varied. Coffee, Financial Times, light breakfast, then his squash game at the athletic club by 11. I gripped the phone tighter; Kaylee’s breathing was audible through the speaker.
She was waiting for me to say something, to react, to make sense of what couldn’t possibly make sense. My husband stood five feet away from me in our kitchen. My husband was also apparently sitting in business class at JFK Airport with another woman.
“Just Kaylee,” I managed, surprised at how normal my voice sounded. “Pre-flight check-in.” Aiden nodded absently, pouring coffee with his left hand while scrolling through his phone with his right.
“Tell her we said hello.” Maybe we’ll finally take her up on those flight benefits she’s always offering. Before we continue, I want to thank you for listening to these stories of betrayal and strife.
If you believe everyone deserves the truth in their relationships, please consider subscribing. It helps us reach others who might need these stories. Now, let’s see how this deception unravels.
The irony of his words made my stomach twist. I watched him move through our kitchen with the easy familiarity of someone who belonged there. Seven years of marriage had created these patterns: where we kept the sugar, how he liked his coffee, the way he always stood at the counter rather than sitting at the breakfast bar.
“Kaylee, I’ll call you back,” I said quietly.
“Ava, wait. I need to tell you.”
Her voice carried the same urgency she’d had three years ago when she called about Dad’s heart attack. That call had come on a Tuesday morning too. I’d been standing in this same kitchen making breakfast when my world tilted off its axis.
“I’ll call you back,” I repeated and ended the call. Aiden glanced up from his phone. “Everything all right? You look pale.”
Did I? I caught my reflection in the microwave door. Same auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, same green eyes my father had given me, same face that had looked back at me every morning for 37 years. But Kaylee’s words had changed something fundamental.
The kitchen felt different now, like when you notice a picture frame has been hanging crooked for months. “Just tired,” I said, reaching for my own coffee mug. My hands were steady.
Twenty years of working as a forensic accountant had taught me to maintain composure when discovering that nothing was what it seemed. CEOs had sat across from me, lying through their teeth about missing millions, while I nodded and took notes and gathered evidence. “You should go back to bed,” Aiden suggested, his British accent wrapping around the words with familiar warmth.
That accent had charmed me at a mutual friend’s dinner party eight years ago. He’d been explaining the difference between rugby and American football, gesturing wildly with a glass of wine, accidentally spilling it on my dress. His mortification had been endearing.
Or had it been? “Maybe I will,” I said, studying his face. The same angular jaw, the same green eyes with gold flecks, the same small scar above his left eyebrow from a childhood bicycle accident.
Every detail exactly as it should be. My phone buzzed. A text from Kaylee: “look at this now.”
A photo appeared. Through an airplane window, I could see the interior of business class. There in seat 3B sat a man in a blue Tom Ford suit.
The photo was taken from an angle, but the profile was unmistakable. The way he held his head, the curve of his jaw, the particular way he gestured while talking. Aiden.
My Aiden. Talking animatedly to a blonde woman who looked about 25, her hand resting on his forearm with casual intimacy. I looked up at the Aiden in our kitchen.
Gray cashmere sweater, reading glasses pushed up into his hair, that same wedding ring on his left hand that we’d chosen together at a small jeweler in Soho. “Actually,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady, “I think I’ll make pancakes.”
“Pancakes.”
He raised an eyebrow. “On a Tuesday? What’s the occasion?” The occasion was that my sister was watching my husband on a plane while my husband stood in our kitchen, and one of these realities had to be false. But I couldn’t say that.
Not yet. Not until I understood what was happening. “Can’t a wife make pancakes for her husband without needing a reason?” He smiled, that particular half-smile that used to make my heart skip.
“Of course, though you know I have squash at 11.” “Plenty of time,” I said, pulling ingredients from the pantry. Flour, eggs, milk.
Simple things that made sense. Unlike the photo on my phone showing my husband in two places at once. As I measured flour into a bowl, I thought about the small inconsistencies I’d dismissed over the past few months.
The night he’d come home from a client dinner smelling like a perfume I didn’t recognize. The weekend he’d gone to Boston for a conference that I later couldn’t find any record of online. The way he’d been perfect lately.
Too perfect. No forgotten anniversaries. No socks left on the bedroom floor.
No irritating habits that had once driven me crazy but now seemed oddly absent. “I love you,” Aiden said suddenly, walking over to kiss my forehead. His lips were warm, familiar.
“I love you too,” I replied automatically, the words hollow as the measuring cup in my hand. He returned to his newspaper, settling back into his morning routine. I watched him turn the pages with precise movements, each gesture exactly as I remembered.
But memory, I was learning, could be manufactured. Reality could be edited. And somewhere between my kitchen and JFK Airport, my marriage had split into two versions.
One of them was a lie. I picked up my phone and typed a message to Kaylee: “Don’t let that plane take off.” But even as I hit send, I knew it was too late.
The engines were already running. The door was already closed. And whatever game was being played in my life had already begun.
The sound of the apartment door closing echoed through the hallway as Aiden left for his squash game. I stood at the window watching him exit our building, his gym bag slung over his shoulder. That confident stride unchanged after all these years.
He turned left toward the athletic club just as he did every Tuesday and Saturday. Normal. Predictable.
Except nothing felt normal anymore. The moment he disappeared around the corner, I moved with purpose toward his home office. The mahogany desk we’d bought at an estate sale in the Hamptons sat beneath his diplomas from Cambridge and Harvard Business School.
Everything meticulously organized, as always. But organization, I’d learned from years of forensic accounting, often masked the most elaborate deceptions. I opened my laptop and logged into our joint accounts, my fingers moving across the keyboard with the same precision I used when tracking embezzled funds for Fortune 500 companies.
The credit card statements loaded slowly, each month revealing a pattern that made my chest tighten. There it was. A charge at the Tokyo Mandarin Oriental from March 15th through 18th.
I remembered that weekend clearly. Aiden had supposedly driven to Connecticut to help his mother reorganize her garage after his father’s death. I’d offered to go with him, but he’d insisted I stay home and rest after a particularly grueling audit.
The hotel charge was for two guests. Room service for two. Spa treatments for two.
My hands trembled slightly as I scrolled further. The Four Seasons. A weekend when he’d claimed to be at client dinners in Midtown.
I’d been home with food poisoning, too sick to question why his client meetings required overnight stays at hotels 40 minutes from our apartment. I pulled up his business credit card next. More hotels.
More restaurants I’d never heard him mention. Jewelry purchases from Cartier that had never materialized as gifts for me. My methodical brain, trained to spot financial irregularities, cataloged each discrepancy while my heart tried to rationalize them away.
Maybe they were client gifts. Maybe the hotels were for visiting executives. Maybe there was an explanation that didn’t involve my husband living an entirely separate life.
My phone rang. Sophia Chen’s name appeared on the screen. “I’m 15 minutes away,” she said without preamble. “And Ava, you need to prepare yourself. What I found—it’s extensive.”
Sophia and I had been roommates at NYU, both studying accounting before our paths diverged. Mine toward forensic investigation, hers toward what she cryptically called private intelligence. Her divorce from Richard, the Wall Street trader who’d been sleeping with his 23-year-old assistant, had transformed her from corporate analyst to someone who specialized in what she called marital reconnaissance.
While waiting for her, I continued my investigation. Our joint investment accounts showed regular activity, but when I dug deeper, I found withdrawals I didn’t recognize. Small amounts at first: $5,000 here, $10,000 there, always just below the threshold that would trigger automatic alerts.
The kind of systematic siphoning I’d seen in countless fraud cases, except this time it was happening in my own accounts. The doorbell rang. Sophia stood there in her typical all-black ensemble, tablet clutched against her chest, her expression grim.
She’d worn that same look when she discovered Richard’s affair, when she’d had to tell me about my father’s secret gambling debts after his death, when life demanded brutal honesty between friends. “Show me,” I said, leading her to the dining room table. She opened her tablet, fingers flying across the screen with practiced efficiency.
“The woman your sister saw him with is Madison Vale, 26 years old, pharmaceutical sales representative for Silex Industries.” A photo appeared: blonde, conventionally beautiful in that polished way that suggested expensive maintenance. “She’s been working the Manhattan territory for two years.”
“Her social media is mostly private, but I managed to access some tagged photos.” The images that followed made my stomach plummet. Madison and Aiden at a restaurant I didn’t recognize.
Madison and Aiden at what looked like a hotel bar in Miami. Madison and Aiden at a charity gala, the same night I’d been in Boston for a conference. “How long?” My voice sounded distant, like someone else was asking.
“Based on the digital footprint, at least three months.” “But Ava, that’s not the strangest part.” Sophia pulled up another screen. “I accessed your building’s security footage through a contact.”
“Look at this.” The video showed our apartment building’s lobby from last Tuesday. There was Aiden, entering at 6:47 p.m., briefcase in hand.
The timestamp matched when he’d arrived home from work. Everything looked normal until Sophia zoomed in. “Watch his shadow,” she said.
The shadow fell at the wrong angle. It flickered slightly when he passed under the chandelier. Details that would be invisible to casual observation but glaring to someone looking for deception.
“This is deepfake technology,” Sophia explained. “Someone has been inserting fabricated footage into your building’s security system.” “This isn’t amateur work.”
“We’re talking about sophisticated software that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement properly.” I stared at the screen, my mind struggling to process what this meant. “Why would someone go to such lengths?”
“That’s what we need to figure out.” “But there’s more.” She pulled up another file. “I spoke to a few of your neighbors.”
“Discreetly.” “Mrs. Patterson from 20C mentioned something interesting.” Mrs. Patterson.
78 years old. Lived alone with her two Persian cats. Spent most of her time watching the hallway through her peephole.
The building’s unofficial security system. “She said she saw Aiden leaving with suitcases three months ago.” The weekend you were at that conference in Boston.
“She remembered specifically because he helped her with her groceries on his way out.” “Said he was going away for a while.” I remembered that weekend.
The conference had been mandatory. Two days of mind-numbing presentations about new SEC regulations. I’d come home Sunday evening to find Aiden cooking dinner.
Rosemary chicken, my favorite. He’d said he’d spent the weekend organizing his home office and catching up on sleep. The office had looked exactly the same.
“But I came home and he was here,” I said, the words feeling thick in my throat. “Was he?” “Or was someone who looked exactly like him?”
The room tilted slightly. I gripped the edge of the table, my accountant’s brain trying to create logical columns where none existed. “That’s insane. People don’t just… get replaced.”
“No,” Sophia agreed, her voice gentle but firm. “They don’t.” “Not without significant resources and planning.”
“Ava, has Aiden been working on anything sensitive?” Any deals or projects that might make him a target? I thought about his recent work. Mergers, acquisitions, the usual investment banking activities.
Nothing that seemed worth this level of elaborate deception. Unless there was something he hadn’t told me about. Another secret to add to the growing pile.
“I need to see more footage,” I said, my voice steadier now. “Every entry and exit for the past three months.” Credit card receipts.
Phone records. Everything. Sophia nodded, already typing. “I’ll get what I can.”
“But Ava, you need to be careful.” Whoever is doing this, whether it’s Aiden or someone else, they’ve invested serious resources. This isn’t a simple affair.
This is something else entirely. Sophia left after giving me an encrypted phone to contact her. Warning me to act normally until we understood the full scope of what was happening.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in a state of suspended animation. Cleaning things that didn’t need cleaning. Organizing files that were already organized.
Anything to keep my hands busy while my mind raced through possibilities that seemed increasingly insane. At 5:30, I heard Aiden’s key in the lock. The man who might not be Aiden.
The stranger who’d been living in my home, sharing my bed, playing the role of my husband with such precision that I’d never questioned it until today. I arranged my face into something resembling calm and started preparing dinner. “Something smells amazing,” he called out, same as always.
The routine so familiar it felt like muscle memory. I decided to make shrimp scampi, my grandmother’s recipe from Naples. The garlic and white wine sauce filled the apartment with its rich aroma.
This particular dish held significance in our relationship. The real Aiden had a severe shellfish allergy, documented by three emergency room visits over the years. His medical alert bracelet, worn religiously for seven years, specifically listed shellfish as life-threatening.
“Your favorite,” I said, setting the plate in front of him. My voice sounded normal, even pleasant. Twenty years of maintaining composure during fraud investigations had taught me to compartmentalize panic.
He looked at the dish with what appeared to be genuine delight. “You haven’t made this in ages.” That was true.
I hadn’t made it because my husband would die if he ate it. But this man picked up his fork without hesitation, twirling the linguine with practiced ease, bringing a shrimp to his mouth with appreciation. No reaction.
No swelling. No reaching for an EpiPen. Just a man enjoying his dinner.
“This is incredible,” he said, taking another bite. “Your grandmother would be proud.” My grandmother had been dead for 15 years, but she would have been horrified to see me serving shellfish to someone I was testing like a laboratory specimen.
I watched him eat, cataloging every gesture, every expression, looking for the seams in his performance. “So I was thinking,” I said, refilling his wine glass with the measured calm of someone discussing the weather. “We should visit your mother this weekend.”
The real Aiden would have immediately manufactured an excuse. His relationship with his mother was complicated at best, toxic at worst. She’d never approved of me, never forgiven him for marrying outside their social circle.
Our visits to Connecticut were carefully rationed, usually requiring weeks of negotiation. “That sounds wonderful,” he replied without missing a beat. “She’ll be thrilled to see us.”
Thrilled. His mother had never been thrilled about anything involving me. I felt my phone recording from its position behind the fruit bowl, capturing this conversation that would later serve as evidence of… what?
That my husband had been replaced by someone who actually liked his mother? “We could stay the whole weekend.” I continued pushing harder.
Help her with that garden project she mentioned. “Perfect.” “I’ll call her after dinner to let her know.”
The real Aiden would rather have dental surgery without anesthesia than spend a weekend doing manual labor for his mother. This man was failing every test, yet succeeding perfectly at being a better version of my husband. After dinner, we settled onto the couch for our usual evening routine.
Netflix, mild conversation about our days, the comfortable silence of a long-married couple. Except nothing about this felt comfortable anymore. Every gesture he made, every word he spoke felt like watching a highly skilled puppeteer manipulate strings I couldn’t see.
“I’m exhausted,” I announced at ten, stretching in an exaggerated way. “That audit today really wore me out.” “You work too hard,” he said, kissing my forehead.
The lips were warm, the pressure familiar, but wrong in some indefinable way. In our bedroom, I changed into pajamas while he brushed his teeth. The sounds from the bathroom were perfect.
The electric toothbrush for exactly two minutes, the mouthwash gargle, the face-washing routine. Someone had studied my husband’s habits with anthropological precision. When he climbed into bed beside me, I forced myself to remain still.
He turned on his side, facing away from me, his breathing evening out within minutes. The real Aiden was a chronic insomniac who usually read until well past midnight. This man fell asleep like someone without worries, without secrets, without a stolen identity weighing on his conscience.
I waited, counting his breaths, until I was certain he was deeply asleep. Then I slipped out of bed with the careful movements of someone defusing a bomb. His briefcase sat in its usual spot beside the dresser, leather worn soft from years of use.
The real Aiden’s briefcase, carried by an imposter. Inside, the usual contents appeared normal at first glance. Laptop, various files, business cards.
But beneath a stack of investment portfolios, I found an envelope that didn’t belong. My fingers trembled as I extracted its contents. A pay stub made out to Marcus Webb, address in Queens.
An actor’s union card. But most damning were the handwritten notes, pages and pages in someone else’s handwriting, documenting my life in excruciating detail. My morning routine, down to which coffee mug I preferred.
My speech patterns with certain phrases highlighted. Details about our relationship history that read like a script prepared for an audition. “Ava likes her coffee with one sugar, no cream.”
“She calls her sister every Tuesday and Thursday.” “Anniversary is October 15th.” “She expects flowers but pretends she doesn’t.”
“Her father died three years ago. Sensitive subject.” “She tears up during the final scene of Casablanca every time.” Our entire marriage reduced to bullet points.
A character study for someone preparing to play the role of devoted husband. At the bottom of the last page, a note in different handwriting. “Three months maximum. Maintain cover until transfer complete.”
Three months. This performance had an expiration date. I slipped the papers back into Marcus’s briefcase with trembling fingers.
My mind processing the implications of “transfer complete.” Transfer of what? Our assets?
The apartment? My entire life? I photographed each page with the encrypted phone Sophia had given me.
Then crept back to bed where the stranger wearing my husband’s face continued sleeping peacefully. The next morning, Sunday, I watched Marcus perform his morning routine with newfound clarity. Every gesture was studied.
Every word carefully chosen. When he mentioned needing to go to the gym, I manufactured an urgent client crisis that required immediate attention at my office. He barely looked up from his tablet, waving goodbye with the distraction of someone whose mind was already elsewhere.
My office building stood empty on Sunday morning. Just security guards and the ghosts of financial crimes. I locked myself in my corner office overlooking Park Avenue and opened my laptop with the determination of someone about to perform surgery on their own life.
The forensic accounting software I used to track corporate fraud would now dissect my personal finances. I started with our joint checking account. The past three months revealed a pattern so subtle I would have missed it without looking specifically for theft.
Transfers of $9,999. Just below the federal reporting threshold. Moving to accounts I didn’t recognize.
The receiving banks were in the Caymans, notorious for their privacy laws and resistance to international investigation. Each transfer had been authorized with my husband’s credentials during times when Marcus had been sitting across from me at dinner or sleeping beside me in bed. The real Aiden was somewhere else, systematically bleeding our accounts while his hired double kept me distracted with perfect impersonations of domestic bliss.
I traced the money through three shell companies, each registered in different jurisdictions, each leading to another dead end. LuxCorp International in the Caymans, Meridian Holdings in Panama, Apex Investments in Cyprus. Corporate structures designed to launder money and hide assets from people exactly like me.
The trail went cold at Swiss banks whose privacy laws were legendary. Fifteen years of savings, investments, and careful financial planning vanishing into numbered accounts I could see but couldn’t touch. The scope of the theft made me physically ill.
$400,000 from our investment portfolio. $600,000 from the home equity line we’d never used. Another $300,000 from various retirement accounts, all taken as loans that wouldn’t trigger immediate alerts.
$1.3 million, methodically extracted while I slept next to a stranger who’d memorized my coffee preferences. But the money was just the beginning. When I accessed my professional client database, I found something worse.
Login records showed access from IP addresses I didn’t recognize, downloads of sensitive financial data from three major corporate audits I’d conducted, information that, in the wrong hands, could facilitate insider trading worth tens of millions. I pulled up Madison Vale’s professional profile. Pharmaceutical sales representative seemed like a cover story now.
Her LinkedIn showed connections to several hedge fund managers, the kind who operated in legal gray areas and weren’t particular about where their information originated. Her travel history on social media aligned perfectly with suspicious trades in pharmaceutical stocks that had occurred just before major FDA announcements. They weren’t just stealing from me.
They were using my reputation, my access, my client relationships to commit federal crimes. Every unauthorized login, every stolen file, every suspicious trade would trace back to my credentials. I’d discovered I wouldn’t just lose money.
I’d lose my license, my career, potentially my freedom. I needed help beyond what Sophia could provide. Grace Morrison answered on the third ring, her voice rough with sleep.
We’d been friends since she was an ambitious prosecutor and I was testifying as an expert witness in fraud cases. Her divorce from a judge who’d been taking bribes had ended her career at the DA’s office, but sharpened her understanding of how the system failed women who discovered their husbands were criminals. “Ava, it’s seven in the morning on Sunday.”
“I need your help. Can you meet me at my office?” Something in my voice must have conveyed the urgency. “Twenty minutes,” she said and hung up.
Grace arrived looking like she’d thrown on the first clothes she could find, her prosecutorial instincts still sharp despite three years in private practice. I showed her everything. The financial transfers, the stolen client data, the photographs of Marcus’s briefcase contents.
She studied the evidence with the focused intensity that had once made defense attorneys nervous. “This is sophisticated,” she finally said. “Professional-level identity theft combined with financial fraud and corporate espionage.”
“But here’s your problem.” Everything is technically authorized. Your husband’s credentials were used.
His biometrics, his passwords. Without proving he wasn’t actually present for these transactions, you’re looking at a he-said, she-said situation. “But I have proof that Marcus Webb has been impersonating him.”
An actor who could claim he was hired for a legitimate reason. Maybe Aiden wanted to surprise you. Maybe it was research for something.
Without Aiden here to contradict that story, and with him presumably ready to deny everything from wherever he’s hiding, the authorities won’t act fast enough. By the time they investigate, the money will be gone and the evidence will disappear. My phone buzzed.
Not my regular phone, but the encrypted one Sophia had given me. I’d left it hidden in my desk drawer. The notification showed a new message on an app I didn’t recognize.
Grace leaned over as I opened it. A single text from an unknown number. “Check Aiden’s old phone.”
I looked at Grace. “Who else knows about this?” “Someone who wants you to find something,” she said. “This feels like breadcrumbs.”
We drove back to my apartment together. Marcus was still at the gym, his Sunday routine predictable as clockwork. I went straight to Aiden’s home office, to the desk drawer where he kept old electronics he claimed to be recycling but never actually disposed of.
His previous iPhone sat there, screen cracked from when he dropped it getting out of a taxi six months ago. I pressed the power button not expecting anything. The screen flickered to life.
5% battery but alive. The phone had been receiving messages for months while supposedly broken. I opened the messages with shaking fingers.
There was a conversation with Madison Vale going back eight months. Plans, photos, and details that made my blood run cold. “The wife suspects nothing.”
Aiden had written three months ago. “Marcus is perfect.” “By the time she figures it out we’ll be untouchable.”
The most recent message was from yesterday. “Tomorrow we finalize everything.” “Our usual place in Paris then disappear forever.”
Grace stared at the phone screen, her prosecutor’s mind already building the case. “Tomorrow is Monday.” If they’re planning to finalize everything we need to act tonight.
I felt something shift inside me, the fear and confusion crystallizing into cold determination. The same focus that helped me unravel million-dollar fraud schemes would now protect what remained of my life. I handed Grace the phone and moved to my laptop with newfound purpose.
“What are you doing?” Grace asked.
“Setting a trap.” Aiden might have stolen my money, but he forgot that I’m the one who knows how to track it.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, creating something beautiful in its simplicity. A financial virus disguised as routine investment documents that would appear in our shared cloud storage. The code was elegant, designed to activate the moment anyone accessed our joint accounts from an international IP address.
When triggered, it would freeze every transaction, lock down all associated accounts, and simultaneously alert federal investigators to suspicious activity. “Is that legal?” Grace watched over my shoulder.
“It’s my own account.” I’m protecting my assets from theft. Completely legal.
I embedded the virus in files labeled “Q3 Investment Review” and “Tax Documents 2024.” Aiden’s arrogance would be his downfall. He always checked our investments before major decisions.
A habit from his banking days that even crime hadn’t broken. The apartment door opened. Marcus was back from the gym, whistling something tuneless.
Grace and I exchanged glances. She understood immediately, slipping Aiden’s phone into her purse while I closed my laptop. “Working on Sunday again?” Marcus appeared in the doorway, gym bag over his shoulder, performance-perfect sweat on his forehead. “You really should take a break.”
“Just finishing up,” I said, my voice steady. “Grace stopped by to discuss a case we’re collaborating on.” He nodded at Grace with practiced charm.
“Good to see you.” “Will you stay for lunch?” “Actually,” I said standing up, “I was thinking we could have lunch at that place in Astoria. You know, where we went after our honeymoon.”
“They had that amazing grilled octopus.” Marcus’s smile never wavered, but I saw the flicker of panic in his eyes. We’d never been to Astoria together.
The real Aiden and I had honeymooned in Santorini, not Greece as I’d mentioned. But Marcus didn’t know that. “Astoria?” He repeated, buying time.
“The little taverna where we danced until dawn.” “You said it was the most romantic night of your life.” Grace watched our exchange like a tennis match, recognizing the test I was administering.
Marcus’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Of course,” he said finally. “Though I thought it was closed for renovations.”
A complete fabrication to cover his ignorance. The place I described didn’t exist. I smiled warmly, playing the devoted wife while documenting another crack in his performance.
“You’re probably right.” Let’s just order Thai food instead. The relief in his shoulders was visible.
Grace excused herself, taking the evidence with her. As Marcus headed to shower, I made three phone calls that would light fires under Aiden’s carefully constructed scheme. First, Robert Steinberg, CEO of Steinberg Industries and Aiden’s biggest client.
I kept my tone conversational, concerned but not alarmed. “Robert, I’m so sorry to bother you on Sunday, but I noticed some unusual activity in your company’s investment portfolio while reviewing adjacent accounts.” Nothing serious, probably just a clerical error, but you might want to have your team take a look.
The seed of doubt planted, watered with just enough concern to trigger an internal audit that would discover discrepancies leading back to Aiden’s unauthorized access. Second call, Jennifer Wu at Phoenix Capital. Same approach, different angle.
A mysterious transfer that didn’t match their usual patterns. “So strange, probably nothing but worth checking.” Third, David Martinez at Meridian Financial.
By Monday morning, three major firms would be discovering security breaches that all traced back to credentials associated with Aiden Mercer. My phone rang as I ended the third call. The caller ID showed my mother’s assisted living facility in New Jersey.
My chest tightened. Sunday afternoon calls usually meant medical emergencies. “Mrs. Chin.”
The voice belonged to Nancy, the facility director. “Your mother is fine, but she’s quite agitated.” She insists someone is lying about your husband visiting her.
“I’ll be right there.” The drive to New Jersey took 90 minutes, Marcus believing I was handling a crisis with my mother’s medication. The facility sat nestled among trees that were just beginning to turn gold, a peaceful setting for lives in their final chapters.
My mother’s room overlooked the garden, photos covering every surface, her memories made tangible. “Ava.” She grabbed my hands the moment I walked in, her grip stronger than her 82 years should allow.
“That woman is lying.” “I told her Aiden was here last month, but she says there’s no record.” Nancy stood in the corner looking apologetic.
“The visitor log shows no entry, but Mrs. Chin is adamant.” My mother’s dementia made her an unreliable witness in most situations, but she had moments of startling clarity, especially about recent events. “Tell me about his visit, Mom.”
“He came on a Thursday.” I remember because it was Pudding Day. He asked about your father’s life insurance, wanted to know if there were other policies besides the one you knew about.
“I told him about the Northwestern Mutual policy, the one your father never told you about.” Aiden said he wanted to make sure you were protected. My blood turned to ice.
There had been another policy, one I discovered only after Dad’s death. $500,000 that had gone to pay for Mom’s care. Few people knew about it.
“Did he ask about anything else?” The safety deposit box. He wanted to know which bank, what was in it.
I told him about your father’s coin collection, the one he thought would be valuable someday. I kissed her forehead, promising to come back soon and stepped into the hallway with Nancy. “Check your security footage from last month. Every Thursday.”
Nancy pulled up the files on her tablet. We scrolled through weeks of footage, residents coming and going, families visiting, staff changes. Then there he was.
August 15th, 2:47 p.m. Aiden walking through the front door, signing the visitor log, spending 43 minutes with my mother. But the log.
Nancy pulled up the physical sign-in sheet, photographed and archived. Aiden’s name wasn’t there. The page showed a gap as if that line had been skipped entirely.
“He signed it,” Nancy said bewildered. “I watched him sign it.” Someone had digitally altered the archived image, removing his signature with surgical precision.
But they hadn’t thought to check the security footage. Aiden had been planning this for months, gathering information about every asset, every policy, every possible source of money. He’d even targeted my mother, mining her confused memories for financial details.
I drove back from New Jersey with Nancy’s security footage saved on my phone. Another piece of evidence in the growing mountain of Aiden’s deception. The Sunday evening traffic moved slowly, giving me time to process the calculated cruelty of visiting my mother.
