Chapter 11: The Second Opinion

The gold coin logo burned itself into my memory, a bright spot in the sudden darkness of the monitor. Catherine had killed the power, her hand hovering over the cord she’d yanked from the wall.

"Mrs. Vane," Greta said from the doorway, her voice sharp. "You shouldn't be in here."

I turned, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "I was just looking for a place to put the sheets."

Catherine was staring at me, her chest heaving. The fragile, vacant mask was gone, replaced by something feral. She looked like a cornered animal calculating the distance to my throat.

"Get out," she whispered.

I backed away, bumping into the hall table. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude."

I fled the guest house, the screen door slamming behind me. I didn't stop running until I was back in the main kitchen, leaning over the sink, splashing cold water on my face.

*The Cayman Islands Bank.*

Why was the "invalid" sister-in-law accessing an offshore bank account? And not just accessing it—authorizing transfers. *Sequence code Alpha-Nine.* That was sophisticated language. That was money laundering language.

My phone was still on the island where I'd left it. I picked it up, my fingers wet and shaking. I needed answers that Google couldn't give me.

I dialed Mark.

Mark was an old friend from business school, the kind of guy who went into forensic accounting because he found fraud "sexy." He worked for a firm that specialized in digital asset recovery.

"Elena?" he answered on the second ring. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Finally ready to leave the construction world and come work with the grown-ups?"

"I need a hypothetical, Mark."

"I love hypotheticals. Shoot."

I lowered my voice, glancing at the doorway. "Say you have an insurance policy listed in a corporate database. Key Man Life. The beneficiary field is locked. It lists a spouse."

"Okay. Standard setup."

"Say the spouse listed isn't the current wife. Say it's a woman from a marriage twenty years ago that nobody knew about."

Silence on the line. Then the sound of a chair creaking. Mark was leaning forward.

"That's not a glitch, Elena. That's a hard link."

"I know. The broker said it pulls from federal records. But here's the thing—the date of the marriage is 2002. My... the husband was twenty-two. He was traveling."

"People get married young. Vegas. Tijuana. It happens."

"But wouldn't it have come up? When we got married? When we filed taxes?"

"Not necessarily," Mark said slowly. "The SSA database and the IRS database talk to each other, but they don't gossip. Unless there was a conflicting claim—like two people filing as spouse for the same SSN in the same year—it might not flag. Especially if..." He trailed off.

"If what?"

"If the second marriage wasn't properly filed. Or if the first one was... privileged."

"Privileged?"

"Protected. Sealed. Sometimes high-net-worth families use trusts to shield vital records. It stops gold diggers. But it also creates ghosts."

I thought of the "C. Vane Trust." The money that flowed out every time the company was in trouble.

"Mark," I said, "if the system says 'Spouse,' does it mean there was definitely a marriage certificate uploaded?"

"Yes. It's a binary field. 1 or 0. Married or Single. For it to say Spouse, someone had to provide a document that satisfied the verification algorithm."

"Who verified it?"

"The Administrator of the account at the time of upload."

"Can I see who that was?"

"If you have access to the audit logs, yes. Look for the metadata on the upload file. It will have a user ID attached to it."

"I tried. I'm locked out of the logs."

"Of course you are. Someone doesn't want you looking." Mark’s voice dropped. "Elena, be careful. If this is what I think it is—insurance fraud, bigamy, tax evasion—you're the guarantor. You're the one holding the bag."

"I know," I whispered.

"Get the logs," he said. "Find out who uploaded that certificate in 2002. That's your smoking gun."

I hung up.

Who verified the upload?

In 2002, I was in college. Richard was in Europe. Eleanor was running the company.

But the system was digital. In 2002, Vane Construction was still using paper ledgers. They didn't digitize until 2010.

Which meant the "2002" document wasn't uploaded in 2002. It was backdated.

Someone had uploaded it later. Someone with Administrator access.

I looked out the window at the guest house. The blinds were still drawn.

Catherine.

The woman who didn't use computers. The woman who just authorized a transfer to the Cayman Islands.

I needed to see those logs. And I knew the only computer that might have the access I needed.

Not Richard’s. Not mine.

The one in the library. Eleanor’s.