Chapter 5 - The Hero’s Worst DayEthan didn’t tell us about Al-Rashid immediately.
For the first time since this began, he looked frightened.
Not startled.
Not annoyed.
Frightened.
“Who sent that?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Delete nothing.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
He rubbed a hand across his face.
We were sitting in Claire’s office in downtown Annapolis, Poppy with Rachel for the morning.
Claire watched him carefully.
“What happened seven years ago?”
Ethan stared through the window.
“Grant was investigated.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Contract fraud.”
My heartbeat slowed.
Grant had always described the early years of Ellison Strategic Development as difficult but brilliant.
He talked about sleeping in his office.
Betting everything on himself.
Outworking competitors.
He never mentioned an investigation.
Ethan continued.
“At the time, I was assigned to an acquisitions liaison office. Grant’s company was a subcontractor on a logistics project.”
Claire was already taking notes.
“There were discrepancies,” Ethan said. “Equipment billed at prices that didn’t match delivery records. Components listed as new that appeared to be refurbished.”
“Did Grant know?” I asked.
“I believed he did.”
“Did you report him?”
“Yes.”
That explained the silence between them.
Or should have.
“Then why would Grant call you for a favor?”
Ethan gave a tired smile.
“That’s the question I should have asked before agreeing.”
“What happened to the investigation?”
“It went nowhere.”
“Why?”
“Evidence disappeared.”
The room became very quiet.
“What kind of evidence?”
“Procurement files. Internal emails. Shipping manifests.”
Claire stopped writing.
“Were you accused of losing them?”
“No. But Grant knew I’d reported the irregularities. Our friendship ended.”
“You were friends?”
“College roommates.”
That surprised me more than anything.
Grant had spoken endlessly about college.
His professors.
His first startup.
His old girlfriends.
His fraternity.
Never Ethan.
“I was best man at his first wedding,” Ethan added.
I blinked.
“His what?”
Ethan looked at me.
“Grant was married before you.”
The room shifted.
I actually laughed because my brain rejected the sentence.
“No.”
“I attended the wedding.”
“He told me he’d never been married.”
Ethan’s face went pale.
“I assumed you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
Claire interjected.
“Name?”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
I knew that name.
Not personally.
But I had seen it before.
On old company paperwork.
Grant once told me Rebecca Sloan had been an early employee who “betrayed the company” and disappeared after stealing money.
“Was she an employee?”
“She became one after they married.”
“What happened to her?”
Ethan hesitated.
“They divorced.”
“When?”
“Eight years before Grant met you.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.”
That wasn’t entirely convincing.
“Ethan.”
He looked at me.
“What aren’t you saying?”
He took a long breath.
“Rebecca was the person who originally found the billing discrepancies.”
My skin prickled.
“She helped expose Grant?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
“After the investigation collapsed, she left Colorado.”
“Where?”
“I lost contact.”
Claire leaned back.
“Grant told Mara this woman stole from him.”
Ethan looked genuinely stunned.
“That’s not what happened.”
I thought of all the stories Grant had told me.
Former employees who betrayed him.
Friends who became jealous.
Partners who were unstable.
Women who were “crazy.”
I had believed some of them.
Not all.
Enough.
My phone buzzed again.
Another unknown message.
This time, a photograph.
A woman with curly red hair stood beside a younger Ethan outside what looked like a courthouse.
On the back of the printed photo someone had handwritten a date.
Seven years earlier.
And three words.
HE DID IT AGAIN.
Claire immediately asked me to forward the message.
“Whoever this is wants you digging.”
“Or wants me scared.”
“Possibly both.”
Ethan stared at the red-haired woman.
“Rebecca.”
A chill ran through me.
“Can we find her?”
Claire typed the name.
Within minutes, we learned Rebecca Sloan had changed her surname after remarriage.
Rebecca Sloan Mercer.
She lived in Virginia.
And she was a family-law judge.
That was almost funny.
Grant’s first wife had become a judge.
“She won’t be involved in your case,” Claire said, reading my expression. “Different jurisdiction.”
“I don’t care about that. I want to know what happened.”
Claire hesitated.
“Contacting Grant’s former spouse while custody litigation is active is delicate.”
“Can you do it?”
“Yes.”
She sent an email.
Rebecca replied eleven minutes later.
Only one sentence.
I have been waiting nine years for someone to ask me the right question.
By late afternoon, she was sitting across from us.
Rebecca was fifty, elegant, sharp-eyed, and somehow exactly the opposite of every story Grant had ever told about her.
She studied me for several moments.
“You’re younger than I expected.”
“I get that a lot.”
“No,” she said gently. “I mean younger than I was when I finally left him.”
That silenced me.
She folded her hands.
“What has he accused you of?”
“Infidelity. Instability. Trying to take our daughter.”
Rebecca nodded as though checking boxes on a list.
“He accused me of addiction.”
“Were you—”
“No.”
Her voice remained calm.
“He told our friends I was drinking at work. He told the company board I was stealing. He told my parents I had become mentally unstable.”
I felt the hairs rise on my arms.
“What did you actually do?”
“I discovered he was falsifying invoices.”
Ethan looked down.
Rebecca continued.
“When I confronted him, Grant told me nobody would believe me over him. He said reputation was simply the story most people heard first.”
That sounded exactly like my ex-husband.
“What happened to the evidence?” Claire asked.
Rebecca’s eyes moved toward Ethan.
“I gave copies to someone I trusted.”
Ethan frowned.
“You never gave them to me.”
“I know.”
“Who?”
Rebecca reached into her purse.
She removed a small black flash drive.
“My sister.”
Claire stared at it.
“You still have them?”
“Some.”
“Why didn’t you use them then?”
“Because my sister received a threat.”
My throat tightened.
“What kind?”
“A photograph of her six-year-old son leaving school.”
Nobody spoke.
Rebecca looked at me.
“I had no money, no power, and no idea who Grant had working for him. So I took the divorce settlement, left Colorado, changed careers, and waited.”
“For what?”
“For him to do it again.”
I recoiled slightly.
“With me?”
“With someone.”
Her eyes softened.
“I’m sorry.”
Then she pushed the flash drive toward Claire.
“This won’t prove he manipulated the airplane photograph.”
“No,” Claire said.
“But it may prove a pattern.”
Rebecca nodded.
“And there’s one more thing.”
She took out her phone.
“Grant contacted me yesterday.”
My heart stopped.
“What did he want?”
Rebecca opened the message.
Grant had written:
If Mara reaches out, remember your nondisclosure agreement.
Rebecca looked directly at me.
“He knew you were going to find me before you found me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Ethan’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His expression changed.
“Who is it?” I asked.
He turned the phone so we could see.
GRANT ELLISON.
Claire said, “Answer it.”
Ethan put the call on speaker.
Grant’s voice came through immediately.
“You really want to do this?”
Ethan’s jaw hardened.
“You mean tell the truth?”
“You always did have a weakness for damaged women.”
My cheeks burned.
Rebecca went still.
Grant continued.
“Walk away from Mara.”
“No.”
“If you testify for her, I’ll release what happened at Al-Rashid.”
Ethan’s face drained of color.
Claire mouthed, Keep him talking.
“What happened at Al-Rashid?” Ethan asked.
Grant laughed softly.
“You know exactly what happened.”
The line disconnected.
I stared at Ethan.
“What is Al-Rashid?”
He didn’t answer.
May you like
And for the first time, I realized Grant wasn’t only threatening me.
He had something on Ethan too.
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