“That’s impossible.”

Reeves turned to the final page. Attached beneath the account records was a handwritten note investigators had recovered from Owen’s prison cell, and its message made the situation far more complicated than another fraudulent account.

“If anything happens to me, Elise has the key.”

For several seconds, I couldn’t understand what I was reading. Owen had apparently left behind $11.4 million under my identity and had told someone that I possessed a key, yet he had never mentioned either the account or anything capable of accessing it.

“I don’t have a key.”

Reeves didn’t accuse me of lying. Instead, he asked me to think carefully about anything Owen had given me during our marriage, particularly objects he insisted I keep safe, unusual gifts, documents, storage devices, or anything connected to Noah.

That last suggestion made me stop.

I remembered the night Noah was born, when the man I knew as Caleb had placed a small object in my hand while I was exhausted in the hospital. At the time, I had thought it was nothing more than a sentimental gift from a new father to his wife.

I hadn’t looked at it in years.

Mara immediately noticed the change in my expression.

“Elise, what is it?”

I looked toward the hallway, suddenly remembering exactly where I had packed the object when Noah and I moved to Richmond.

“I think I know what Owen meant.”

The people who had photographed my son believed I possessed something worth $11.4 million.

And without realizing it, I might have carried it with me when I left Arlington.

 

Part 5: Owen’s Final Secret

I stared at the offshore statement while Noah remained elsewhere in the house, unaware that his father’s past had reached us again. Fourteen months earlier, I had learned that the man I married had used my identity to hide financial activity, but now an account containing $11.4 million suggested that Owen’s deception had continued far beyond what investigators originally uncovered.

“If anything happens to me, Elise has the key.”