Chapter 13 - The Man Across the Street
I did not sleep.
At seven the next morning, David arrived with an investigator named Rachel Sloan.
She spread photographs across my parents’ kitchen table.
My house.
My car.
My office.
The grocery store.
My obstetrician’s building.
Lily’s pediatrician.
Some photographs had timestamps.
Several were taken before I discovered the affair.
“This started while I was pregnant.”
Rachel nodded.
“Approximately seven months ago.”
“Who took them?”
“We’re working on that.”
I remembered Robert’s call.
“Marcus Bennett.”
Rachel looked at David.
Then at me.
“What about him?”
“Robert said Chloe’s ex-husband was working for Daniel.”
Rachel wrote the name down.
Within an hour, she had an address.
Within two, she had more.
Marcus Bennett was not a private investigator.
He ran a small debt collection company.
Westbridge Advisory shared the same mailing address.
David leaned back.
“That explains the payment channel.”
Rachel nodded.
“But not the surveillance.”
My phone buzzed.
A message from Daniel.
I know you’re scared.
Then another.
You’re being manipulated.
Then:
Come home and I’ll explain everything.
I handed the phone to David.
He photographed the messages.
“Don’t answer.”
Another arrived.
Ask Chloe why Marcus was watching you.
I stared at it.
David saw my expression.
“What?”
I showed him.
Rachel’s eyebrows rose.
“He’s trying to redirect you.”
“Maybe.”
“But?”
“He may also be telling the truth about one thing.”
I called Chloe.
David objected.
I put the phone on speaker.
She answered after four rings.
“Jennifer?”
“Did Marcus watch me?”
Silence.
“Chloe.”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Daniel know him?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Chloe began crying.
“Daniel contacted Marcus before he contacted me.”
My blood ran cold.
“What?”
“After my divorce.”
“What did he want?”
“He said he wanted to help settle some debts Marcus and I still shared.”
“Why?”
“I thought it was because he cared about me.”
David asked, “Did Marcus ever mention Jennifer?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About eight months ago.”
That was before Chloe said her relationship with Daniel became romantic.
“What did he say?”
Chloe hesitated.
“He asked whether Daniel’s wife was wealthy.”
I looked at David.
“My family isn’t wealthy.”
But then I remembered something.
The inheritance.
My grandmother had died two years earlier.
She left me a small commercial property.
It was not glamorous.
An old two-story building rented by four businesses.
Daniel always called it “that ugly little property.”
Its value had increased dramatically because a redevelopment project had been approved nearby.
I had never told Daniel the latest appraisal.
David knew.
He whispered, “The building.”
Chloe heard him.
“What building?”
I ignored her.
Then another message arrived from Daniel.
Only five words.
May you like
Check your grandmother’s property records.
---
