Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN THE RED COAT
Z
Victor called Rita eleven times from the hospice parking lot.
She did not answer.
On the twelfth attempt, her number had been disconnected.
He stood beneath the rain with Sarah’s photographs tucked inside his coat, feeling the transplanted kidney pulse like a second heart beneath his skin. Every instinct told him to return to Boston immediately, but fear kept him rooted in place. If federal investigators were waiting, walking into his office could mean walking into handcuffs.
His attorney, Martin Keene, answered on the first ring.
“Where are you?” Martin demanded.
“Mexico.”
There was a long pause.
“Tell me you did not leave the country to avoid questioning.”
“I came to see Sarah.”
“Victor, the FBI executed a warrant at Vance Development yesterday morning. They seized computers, contracts, payroll files, and three years of financial records.”
Victor leaned against a parked car. “Rita stole from the company.”
“Rita may have taken money, but the transfers carry your authorization.”
“My signature was copied.”
“Then prove it.”
Victor lowered his voice. “She may also have burned down my house.”
Another silence.
Martin finally said, “Do not accuse anyone until we know what the fire marshal found.”
“I have photographs.”
“Photographs are not forensic evidence.”
“They put her at the property before the fire.”
“Send them to me. Then get on the next flight home.”
Victor returned to Sarah’s room before leaving. She was asleep, one hand resting on the blanket, her fingers curled around the edge as though holding on to something invisible. For a moment, he remembered the young woman he had met at a charity auction twenty-four years earlier. Sarah had laughed at his expensive suit because the price tag was still attached to the sleeve.
He had loved her laughter once.
Or perhaps he had loved the way it made him feel admired.
Lucinda sat by the window reading a paperback novel. When Victor entered, she closed it.
“You should go,” she said.
“I need Sarah to testify that Rita was at the house.”
Lucinda stared at him in disbelief. “Your wife is dying, and you want to put her on a witness stand?”
“She has evidence.”
“She has days when she can barely remain awake.”
“This could save me.”
Lucinda rose slowly. “Sarah has spent twenty-two years saving you.”
Victor looked toward the bed. “I didn’t know she was sick.”
“No. You were too busy promising her home to your mistress.”
The words landed with brutal precision.
Before Victor could answer, Sarah opened her eyes.
“Lucinda,” she murmured, “give us a minute.”
Her sister reluctantly left the room.
Victor moved closer. “The authorities think I stole the money.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you ever sign blank financial authorizations for Rita?”
He hesitated.
Sarah’s expression told him she had her answer.
“She said she was helping me manage personal investments,” Victor admitted. “I trusted her.”
“You trusted her with your company, your money, and our home. Yet when I told you I was tired, you accused me of becoming lazy.”
Victor looked away.
“I need the original photographs,” he said.
“They are not the originals.”
“What?”
Sarah nodded toward the image of the women outside the shelter. “The originals are with an investigator in Boston.”
“You contacted the police?”
“The morning after the fire.”
Victor’s stomach tightened. “Then why did the insurance company pay you?”
“Because the preliminary investigation found no evidence that I started it. The fire began inside the wall behind your study. Investigators initially suspected faulty wiring.”
“But you think Rita did it.”
“I know she entered the house. I don’t know what she did inside.”
Victor paced to the window. “She had a key.”
“I know.”
He turned. “How?”
“I found messages between you.”
Sarah said it without emotion, which made it worse.
“One of them explained where you kept the spare key. Another described the wall safe behind the painting in your study.”
Victor’s face drained of color.
The safe had contained cash, bearer bonds, property deeds, and a private ledger documenting payments to city inspectors. None of it was legal enough to report missing.
“What was inside that safe?” Sarah asked.
“Personal documents.”
“Victor.”
“Nothing connected to you.”
“That was not my question.”
He remained silent.
Sarah reached for a glass of water, but her hand trembled. Victor moved to help her. She pulled away before he could touch it.
“You still don’t understand,” she said. “The fire was not the end of your life. It was someone erasing evidence.”
That night, Victor boarded a flight to Boston. Two federal agents met him at Logan International Airport.
They did not arrest him.
Instead, Special Agent Naomi Brooks escorted him into a private interview room and placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Rita at a bank in the Cayman Islands, wearing sunglasses and carrying a leather folder. The timestamp was from two days earlier.
“She withdrew $2.3 million from an account linked to your company,” Brooks said.
Victor shook his head. “I never opened an offshore account.”
“Your signature says otherwise.”
“It’s forged.”
Agent Brooks slid a second document toward him. “Then we have a problem. The bank required biometric voice authorization.”
Victor read the transcript.
The recorded voice was his.
“That can be fabricated,” he insisted. “AI, editing—anything.”
Brooks watched him carefully. “Perhaps. That is why we need your cooperation.”
“What do you want?”
“We want Rita Coleman.”
Victor laughed bitterly. “So do I.”
The agent leaned forward. “She used you, Mr. Vance. But she didn’t choose you randomly. Before she became your mistress, she worked for a consulting firm connected to three collapsed real estate companies. In every case, money disappeared shortly before federal audits began.”
Victor felt suddenly cold.
“You think she targeted me.”
“We know she did.”
“Then arrest her.”
“We can’t find her.”
Agent Brooks placed a final photograph on the table.
It was a surveillance image taken outside Sarah’s hospice that afternoon. A woman in a red coat stood across the street, watching the entrance.
May you like
Rita had followed him to Mexico.
And she knew Sarah was still alive.
