Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN BEFORE MY WIFE
Corinne stopped pretending she didn’t know Laura.
That happened after Rachel arrived with a preservation notice and told her any destruction or removal of documents could become a legal issue.
Corinne sat in the living room with her arms folded.
“You’re all acting like I killed her.”
Nobody had said that.
I noticed.
Rachel noticed too.
I kept my voice steady.
“How did you know Laura?”
Corinne looked at Maisie’s baby monitor on the coffee table.
“She hired me.”
“For what?”
“Years ago. Before you.”
Laura had owned a small design consultancy before Maisie was born.
Corinne had worked there as an operations manager.
I never met most of Laura’s staff because by the time Laura and I married, she had already sold the company.
“How long?”
“Three years.”
“And you never thought to mention that?”
Corinne laughed bitterly.
“Would you have dated me if I’d opened with, Hello, I used to work for your dead wife?”
“That isn’t the question.”
She looked away.
Rachel stepped in.
“Why did Laura prepare a protective filing against you?”
Corinne’s jaw tightened.
“She became paranoid.”
“About what?”
“Money.”
There it was.
The first real hook into motive.
Corinne said Laura accused her of stealing client funds during the sale of the consultancy.
According to Corinne, the accusation was false.
Laura fired her anyway.
Years later, shortly before the accident, Laura contacted her again because an old account discrepancy resurfaced.
“She threatened to ruin me.”
“What did she send you nine days before she died?”
“A demand letter.”
“Where is it?”
“I threw it away.”
Rachel’s expression barely changed.
“Of course you did.”
Corinne looked at me.
“She was obsessed, Ethan. After Maisie was born, she got worse.”
I stood.
“Careful.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Then tell all of it.”
She swallowed.
Laura believed $480,000 had disappeared during the sale of her company.
Corinne claimed the money went to legitimate vendor payments.
Laura disagreed.
No criminal case was ever filed.
No civil lawsuit completed.
Then Laura died.
The financial question apparently died with her.
Until I married the woman she had accused.
That part made me feel physically sick.
“How did we meet?” I asked.
Corinne frowned.
“You know how.”
“Say it.”
“At the hospital charity gala.”
“By coincidence?”
Pause.
Too long.
“Mostly.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“Mostly isn’t a legal concept.”
Corinne’s face hardened.
“I knew Ethan would be there.”
My throat tightened.
“So you went looking for me.”
“I wanted to talk to him.”
“About Laura?”
“At first.”
I almost couldn’t breathe.
Our first conversation.
The glass of champagne.
Her joke about the auctioneer.
The way she said she recognized me from somewhere but couldn’t place it.
Manufactured.
“How long before you decided not to tell me who you were?”
She stared at the carpet.
“I liked you.”
Not enough.
Not remotely enough.
Rachel asked one more question.
“Did Laura’s demand letter accuse you of taking the $480,000 personally?”
Corinne answered quickly.
“No.”
Rachel lifted one page from the cabinet.
“Then why does this draft affidavit say the funds were routed through an LLC registered to your brother?”
Corinne froze.
We had just answered one mystery.
Laura knew Corinne because she had worked for her.
But the bigger one had opened immediately.
The missing money had not simply vanished.
May you like
It had passed through Corinne’s family.
📖 Corinne finally admitted she deliberately entered my life after Laura’s death, and the old company records suggested the relationship may have started with money she never expected me to trace. 👇
