“Coffee?” she offered.
I was going to refuse, but she was already pouring two cups. She handed me one and pointed to the chair in front of her desk.
“Sit down and tell me everything from the beginning. Omit nothing.”
And I told her. I told her about James’s trip, about Leo’s whisper at the airport, about the decision to hide and watch the house, the men with the keys, the fire, James’s message feigning concern while knowing we should be dead.
Catherine did not interrupt me a single time. She just listened, fingers interlaced under her chin, eyes fixed on me. When I finished, she remained silent for a long moment.
“Your father asked me to look after you if something like this happened,” she said finally. “Robert was a very smart man. He noticed things about your husband that you did not want to see.”
That hurt, but it was true.
“He knew. He knew James was capable of… of this?”
“He suspected James was not who he pretended to be. That he married you for interest. That he was dangerous.”
She took a sip of coffee.
“Robert left me some things. Documents. Information about you and about James. I thought I would never need to use them, but…”
She got up and went to a locked cabinet. She pulled out a thick folder and returned, putting it on the table between us.
“Your father hired a private investigator three years ago, discreetly, to check James’s businesses.”
My heart shrank.
“And what did they find?”
“Debts. Lots of debts. Gambling mainly. Your husband has a serious problem, Sarah. He owes loan sharks, illegal casinos, very dangerous people.”
She opened the folder, showing bank statements, photos, reports.
“His businesses have been bankrupt for two years. He has been using the money from the inheritance your mother left to plug the holes, but it is almost all gone.”
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. My mother’s inheritance. Fifty thousand dollars she left me that I put in a joint account because:
“We are married, babe. What is mine is yours.”
He spent it all. Every last cent.
She turned a page.
“And now the lenders are collecting, with interest. James owes almost two hundred thousand dollars. People like that do not negotiate, Sarah. Either he pays or…”
She did not need to finish the sentence.
“But I do not have that money. We do not have it.”
“So why did he increase the life insurance?” she said simply. “You have a life insurance policy of two million dollars. Your father insisted on that when you got married, remember? He said it was important to protect you and a future grandchild.”
I remembered. I remembered James thinking it was exaggerated at the time, but accepting. I never questioned. I never thought.
“And if I died in an accident…” I continued the reasoning, feeling bile rise to my throat. “James would receive the two million. Pay the debts. Be free.”
“Exactly.”
Catherine closed the folder.
“And a fire is the perfect type of accident. Hard to prove it was arson. Hard to trace. And he has the perfect alibi. He was in another state when it happened.”
“But I did not die. And Leo did not either. And he does not know that yet.”
The way she said that made something click in my head.
“You are suggesting that… that we let him think the plan worked for now?”
She leaned forward.
“Sarah, if you show up now, it will be his word against yours. Do you have proof? Witnesses? Anything other than the story of a six-year-old boy who could have misunderstood a conversation?”
I had nothing. Just the certainty in my heart and the fear in my son’s eyes.
“But what about the men who burned the house? Is the police not going to investigate?”
“They will, and they will conclude it was an accident. A short circuit. A gas leak. Anything. Those men are professionals, Sarah. They do not leave traces.”
She sighed.
“James planned this very well. The only flaw in his plan was… was that Leo heard and that you believed him.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at my son sleeping on the sofa, so small, so innocent, and yet he had saved our lives.
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