Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Never Supposed to Exist
Eleanor Price had been the first person to tell me my marriage was dangerous.
I had hated her for it.
At the time, I was twenty-eight, newly married, and convinced that Jason's possessiveness was proof of how much he loved me.
He was handsome, ambitious, and charming enough to make strangers feel they had known him all their lives.
Mitchell Medical Technologies was still a small company operating out of rented office space in Wilmington, Delaware.
We shared a two-bedroom townhouse and ate takeout on the living room floor because our dining table was covered in product prototypes.
I worked sixteen-hour days designing quality-control procedures while Jason persuaded investors that our medical monitoring systems would revolutionize hospital care.
There were nights when we believed we could change the world.
Looking back, I think I believed it more than he did.
Eleanor was our first compliance director.
She was fifty-four, wore practical shoes, and kept a handwritten notebook even after everyone else moved to digital records.
She had a sharp tongue and absolutely no patience for dishonest people.
Jason called her difficult.
I called her indispensable.
The first time she warned me, we were standing outside the laboratory after an argument about a supplier contract.
Jason had shouted at me in front of three employees because I refused to approve a component that failed our reliability tests.
Afterward, Eleanor found me crying in the parking garage.
"Did he do that at home, too?" she asked.
I wiped my eyes.
"He's under pressure."
"Iris, pressure reveals character."
"It doesn't excuse cruelty."
I told her she didn't understand my husband.
She nodded.
"Maybe not."
"But I understand men who need everyone else to be smaller so they can feel powerful."
I didn't speak to her for two weeks.
Then Jason bought me flowers, took me to a beautiful restaurant, and promised the argument would never happen again.
I believed him.
Three months later, he pushed me against our kitchen counter hard enough to fracture my wrist.
He cried afterward.
He said he hadn't meant to hurt me.
He said his father had been violent and he was terrified of becoming the same kind of man.
He knelt beside the bathroom sink while I held my swollen wrist under cold water.
And I comforted him.
That memory embarrassed me for years.
Now I understood what it represented.
He had turned my pain into an opportunity for me to reassure him.
The courtroom door opened.
Two deputies escorted Jason toward a private conference room while Judge Holloway recessed the hearing.
His attorney followed.
Madison remained standing beside the defense table.
For several seconds, she looked lost.
Then she hurried toward me.
"Iris."
Daniel stepped between us.
"Ms. Brooks, please give my client some space."
She ignored him.
"Who is Eleanor Price?"
I looked at her carefully.
Her makeup was flawless, but her lips had gone pale.
"You've never heard Jason mention her?"
"No."
"What about the Price Foundation?"
Madison hesitated.
"I've seen that name."
"Where?"
She glanced toward the conference room.
"On some documents."
"What documents?"
"Financial reports."
Daniel studied her.
"Ms. Brooks, are you willing to speak with us formally?"
She stepped back.
"Absolutely not."
"Then I suggest you avoid discussing evidence in the hallway."
Madison gave him an angry look.
"You're acting like I'm some kind of criminal."
Daniel remained calm.
"I haven't accused you of anything."
But I noticed something.
Madison had stopped looking toward Jason with admiration.
Now she watched the conference room door the way someone watches a room containing an unexploded bomb.
She left without another word.
Daniel touched my elbow.
"We should go."
I nodded.
We entered a side corridor reserved for attorneys and witnesses.
Agent Sloan waited beside a vending machine, holding a paper cup of coffee.
She didn't offer a handshake.
We had already established that physical contact was difficult for me when I wasn't expecting it.
"How are you doing?" she asked.
"Better than Jason."
"That's a low bar."
Despite everything, I laughed.
Sloan looked at Daniel.
"The judge's question did what we hoped."
"He reacted," Daniel said.
"He did more than react."
Sloan showed us a message on her phone.
"His chief financial officer just received an emergency call."
I stared at the screen.
"From Jason?"
"From his attorney's office, according to our source."
"What did he say?"
Sloan shook her head.
"We don't have the contents."
"But someone contacted the CFO immediately after Eleanor's name came up."
Daniel exchanged a glance with her.
"That narrows the possibilities."
Sloan slipped the phone away.
"Don't interpret his reaction as a victory yet."
"Jason has survived investigations before."
I knew that better than anyone.
Seven years earlier, Eleanor Price had died after her car struck a concrete barrier on a rainy highway.
The police classified it as a single-vehicle accident.
Jason attended her funeral, delivered a moving speech, and paid for the reception.
He told everyone Eleanor had been like a mother to him.
Three days later, he entered her office with a locksmith.
By the end of that week, every box containing her research notes had disappeared.
I remembered asking what happened to her files.
"Archived," Jason said.
"Where?"
"At a storage facility."
"Which one?"
He smiled.
"Why are you suddenly so interested?"
I should have recognized the warning in his voice.
Instead, I told him Eleanor had been my friend.
He put his arms around me.
"Sweetheart, she's gone."
"Let her rest."
For years, I did.
Until I found a photograph hidden inside the lining of an old winter coat.
Eleanor had given me that coat shortly before she died.
It was dark blue, expensive, and too large for me.
She claimed she'd ordered the wrong size online.
I tried to return it.
She refused.
"Keep it somewhere safe," she said.
"If you're ever cold enough to need it, you'll thank me."
At the time, I assumed she was simply being kind.
Seven years later, while packing my belongings during one of Jason's business trips, I discovered a rough stitch beneath the collar.
Inside the lining was a photograph.
It showed Eleanor standing beside a hospital patient monitor with an early Mitchell Medical Technologies logo.
The date printed in the corner was October 18.
The monitor displayed stable vital signs.
But the chart taped beside it carried a handwritten note.
Unit failure—replacement required immediately.
On the back of the photograph, Eleanor had written six words.
Ask what happened to room 417.
I had no idea what they meant.
Not then.
Agent Sloan studied my expression.
"You're thinking about the photograph."
"Yes."
"Do you still have the original?"
"Daniel has it."
She nodded.
"Good."
I hesitated.
"Rebecca, what happens if Madison decides to warn Jason?"
Sloan looked toward the elevators.
"She may already have."
"Then why are you letting her walk away?"
"Because being cruel to another woman isn't itself proof of a federal crime."
I understood.
It was something I had struggled to accept throughout the investigation.
Jason had done terrible things.
But suspicion wasn't evidence.
Anger wasn't a conviction.
And fear didn't automatically give us the right to destroy someone else's life.
We needed records.
Witnesses.
A chain of events that could survive cross-examination.
Sloan's phone vibrated again.
She read the message.
Then her expression became serious.
"Daniel, we have a problem."
"What happened?"
"Mitchell Medical's headquarters just notified employees that all external system access is suspended for an emergency security audit."
Daniel stared at her.
"That timing isn't coincidental."
"No."
I felt my stomach tighten.
Jason had used the same excuse before.
Security audit.
System maintenance.
Routine data migration.
Those were the phrases his executives used whenever documents began disappearing.
Sloan was already dialing.
"Get the preservation team moving."
Daniel reached for his phone.
"We need the court's order transmitted immediately."
I stood between them, feeling a memory rising from the back of my mind.
Something Eleanor had said during our last conversation.
She'd been standing at my office door, wearing her dark green raincoat.
She looked exhausted.
Before leaving, she asked me a strange question.
"Iris, do you know the difference between a failed device and a failed test?"
I shook my head.
"One tells you what happened."
"The other tells you what someone wants you to believe happened."
Then she left.
I never saw her alive again.
"Rebecca," I said.
Agent Sloan lowered her phone.
"What?"
"Before Eleanor died, she was investigating a device failure."
"We know."
"No."
I shook my head.
"That's what Jason told everyone."
She waited.
I looked at Daniel.
"What if Eleanor wasn't investigating a failed device?"
"What if she was investigating a test that somebody deliberately falsified?"
Sloan's expression sharpened.
"Why do you think that?"
"Because of something she said to me."
I repeated her words.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Sloan asked a question I had never considered.
"Iris, who was the lead engineer responsible for approving that test?"
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Because I knew the answer.
I had approved the original safety design.
But the final validation report carried someone else's signature.
Someone who had taken over the department while I was recovering from my first serious injury.
Jason Mitchell.
And beneath his signature was a second name.
Dr. Nathaniel Reed.
The company's senior medical adviser.
The man who had testified in writing that my injuries were caused by an accident.
Sloan looked at me.
"Where is Dr. Reed now?"
I felt the blood leave my face.
"He retired last winter."
"Where?"
"Jason told me he moved to Arizona."
Sloan made another call.
While she spoke, I looked through the hallway window at the gray afternoon sky.
I had spent years believing my husband hurt me because he couldn't control his anger.
Now, for the first time, I wondered whether some of that violence had served another purpose.
Maybe he hadn't only been punishing me.
Maybe he had been keeping me away from something.
Ten minutes later, Sloan ended her call.
Her voice was grim.
"Dr. Reed never moved to Arizona."
"Where is he?"
She held my gaze.
"He's been living under protective supervision for four months."
Daniel straightened.
"Protective supervision?"
Sloan nodded.
"And yesterday he gave investigators a sworn statement."
I swallowed.
"About Eleanor?"
May you like
"About Eleanor."
"And about the night you almost died."
