Instead, I became very still.
I remembered who I had been before pregnancy.
Before nurseries and ultrasound appointments.
Before Evan convinced everyone that I was some pampered Southern heiress who barely understood the company carrying my last name.
For six years, I had served as the forensic accounting director of Whitaker Coastal Holdings, the transportation and commercial property company my mother built with my grandfather.
I had investigated embezzlement.
Shell companies.
Fraudulent vendor accounts.
Executives who believed deleting an email meant deleting evidence.
I knew something Evan apparently had forgotten.
Panic destroys evidence.
Patience preserves it.
Slowly, under the blanket, I raised my left wrist.
My smartwatch was already connected to my phone.
I opened the audio recorder.
Pressed once.
And recorded the rest.
Dr. Bell asked, “What about the baby?”
Evan’s answer came immediately.
“The baby lives.”
My throat tightened.
“Heir survives, wife doesn’t. Everyone feels sorry for the grieving husband. It actually makes everything cleaner.”
Cleaner.
That was how he described murdering me while I delivered his daughter.
A financial cleanup.
A line item.
An inconvenience removed from a balance sheet.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
Dr. Bell finally said, “I want the first payment before she’s taken downstairs.”
“You’ll have it.”
“And after this, we never speak again.”
“Trust me,” Evan replied. “After tomorrow, I’m starting a completely new life.”
I closed my eyes.
He was right about one thing.
Tomorrow would begin a completely new life.
Just not his.
The conversation ended twelve minutes later.
Evan returned to my bedside.
I heard him stand over me.
Then his fingertips brushed gently across my cheek.
For a moment, the tenderness almost made me physically sick.
This was the same hand that had held mine during our first ultrasound.
The same man who painted our daughter’s nursery pale green because I couldn’t decide between yellow and blue.
The same man who cried when we heard her heartbeat.
Or maybe those memories had only ever been performances.
He leaned down.
“Sleep well, baby.”
Then he kissed my forehead.
I wanted to tear away from him.
Instead, I stayed motionless.
Five minutes later, he stretched out on the couch across the room.
Eventually his breathing deepened.
I waited another twenty minutes.
Then I moved.
My hands shook so badly that I mistyped my phone password twice.
The recording was there.
