Chapter 4 - The Question David Couldn’t Explain
The police did not arrest David.
Not immediately.
That frustrated Natalie more than Simone.
“How is removing a safety barrier and taking two women onto a condemned dock not enough?”
“Because being an idiot isn't automatically attempted murder,” Maya said.
They were sitting in Simone's new apartment three weeks after Isabella's funeral.
Simone had rented it because returning to the house she shared with David remained impossible.
The apartment was small.
One bedroom.
White walls.
No memories.
For now, that was exactly what she needed.
Maya had come over because Simone was still physically recovering and hated spending more time in offices than necessary.
“The investigators have to establish intent,” Maya continued. “There is strong evidence of negligence. There may be more. But asking a disturbing question isn't the same as planning to kill someone.”
Natalie crossed her arms.
“Who asks how fast a dock will collapse?”
“Someone reckless. Someone curious. Someone angry. Someone stupid. Or someone with a reason we don't understand yet.”
Simone stared at the coffee table.
“David wouldn't try to kill me.”
Natalie looked at her.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Her answer came immediately.
That surprised even Simone.
“He betrayed me. He lied to me. He chose Rebecca. But I knew David for fifteen years.”
She swallowed.
“He wouldn't plan to kill his daughter.”
Maya nodded.
“That's an important distinction.”
Simone looked at her.
“Then what are we missing?”
They found the first answer in the finances.
Marriage had turned Simone careless with money.
Not irresponsible.
Trusting.
There was a difference, although she no longer considered that difference comforting.
David handled most of their household investments because he worked as a financial consultant.
Simone had her own career in publishing, but after Isabella's pregnancy became complicated, she had reduced her hours.
She had never imagined she needed to audit her husband.
Now Maya's forensic accountant did exactly that.
Two months before the lake accident, David had withdrawn $42,000 from a joint investment account.
He moved it through two transfers.
Then another $38,000.
Then $19,500.
All within nine weeks.
The money eventually reached a newly established account under a company named D&R Residential Holdings.
D.
And R.
David.
Rebecca.
Simone stared at the paperwork.
“They were buying something?”
“A property,” Maya answered.
“Where?”
“North Carolina.”
That caught Simone off guard.
“What?”
“A house outside Asheville.”
Simone almost smiled.
Not because anything was funny.
Because she and David had talked for years about eventually leaving the city and moving somewhere near the mountains.
They had even vacationed in Asheville.
Twice.
The second time Simone was three months pregnant.
She had stood beside David outside a little coffee shop and said, “Imagine raising Izzy somewhere like this.”
David had wrapped his arm around her.
“Maybe we will.”
Apparently, he had meant Rebecca.
“The closing date was scheduled for six weeks after Isabella's due date,” Maya said.
Simone closed the folder.
“I don't want to see anymore.”
“There is more.”
“Of course there is.”
“The offer was made in both David and Rebecca's names.”
“Did Rebecca know where the money came from?”
“We don't know.”
Natalie shook her head.
“She better not come back pretending she's innocent.”
Simone said nothing.
Rebecca called that evening.
Simone almost ignored it.
Then she answered.
“What?”
“I heard you're asking about the Asheville house.”
Simone sat up.
“How?”
“David came here.”
Again.
“He needs to stop doing that.”
“I told him not to come back.”
“Did you know he used our money?”
Silence.
“Rebecca.”
“No.”
“That's convenient.”
“I thought it came from an account he'd owned before your marriage.”
“He lied.”
“Yes.”
“You say that a lot.”
“Because I'm realizing how much he lied to me too.”
Simone's jaw tightened.
“You had the luxury of finding out after sleeping with him for a year.”
Rebecca absorbed the hit without defending herself.
Then she said, “I deserve that.”
Simone hated when Rebecca did that.
It made hating her less satisfying.
“Why are you calling?”
“Because I know why he asked about the dock.”
Simone stood.
“What?”
Rebecca took a breath.
“That afternoon, he told me he was going to tell you about us.”
Simone didn't move.
“He said he couldn't keep living two lives.”
“And what does that have to do with the dock?”
“He wanted to take a photograph.”
“A photograph?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Of the three of us.”
Simone stared at the wall.
“What kind of sick joke is that?”
“He wasn't going to put us together deliberately. He wanted you to see me with him.”
“Why?”
“He thought if you caught us, you'd leave him.”
Simone felt something twist in her stomach.
“He couldn't just ask for a divorce?”
“He said you were pregnant. That you'd beg him to stay. That both families would blame him.”
“So instead he wanted me to catch him cheating?”
“He thought it would make the breakup final.”
Simone pressed her hand over her mouth.
Suddenly the question to the property manager took on a different shape.
How quickly would it fail?
Perhaps David had not wanted anyone to die.
Perhaps he had wanted drama.
A scene.
Shock.
A confrontation near the water.
A spectacular ending to a marriage he did not have the courage to end honestly.
“How do you know this?”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“Before you arrived.”
“And you stayed?”
Rebecca began crying quietly.
“Yes.”
Simone closed her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because I was stupid enough to think him choosing me would make what I'd done worth it.”
For the first time, Simone heard something in Rebecca's voice that sounded like self-disgust rather than self-pity.
It did not create forgiveness.
But it felt like truth.
“What happened after I arrived?”
“You walked toward us. David came to you first. You asked what I was doing there.”
Simone remembered fragments.
Her own confusion.
David saying, “It's not what you think.”
A ridiculous sentence.
It was always exactly what the wife thought.
Rebecca continued.
“You turned around like you were leaving.”
“Yes.”
“David grabbed your arm.”
Simone remembered that too.
Not violently.
But firmly.
“I told him to let me go.”
“He did. Then you backed onto the dock.”
Simone shut her eyes.
Yes.
She had wanted space.
David followed her.
Rebecca followed David.
Three people on a structure meant for none.
“And then it broke,” Simone whispered.
“Yes.”
There had been no murder plot.
No elaborate scheme.
Something more pathetic had happened.
David's cowardice had stacked one selfish decision on top of another until a child died.
He lied to his wife.
He lied to his mistress.
He stole marital money.
He planned a humiliating confrontation instead of asking for a divorce.
He removed a safety barrier because it interfered with the dramatic setting he wanted.
And when everything collapsed—
he saved Rebecca.
The woman he intended to choose.
“Why didn't you tell police all of this immediately?”
Rebecca's voice dropped.
“I was ashamed.”
“That's not good enough.”
“I know.”
“You protected him.”
“At first.”
“You helped him lie.”
“Yes.”
“And my daughter died.”
Rebecca was silent for several seconds.
Then:
“Yes.”
Simone hung up.
The next morning, David appeared at her apartment building.
He never reached her door.
The front desk called upstairs.
“Mrs. Carter? There's a man here asking for you.”
“No visitors.”
“He says he's your husband.”
“No.”
Twenty minutes later, the phone rang again.
“He left something.”
Simone went downstairs.
A large cardboard box sat behind the desk.
Her name was written across the top.
Inside were things from Isabella's nursery.
The yellow blanket.
Three children's books.
A stuffed rabbit.
The silver frame meant for her newborn photograph.
And a letter.
Simone nearly threw it away.
Instead, she opened it.
Simone,
I know nothing I say can fix what happened.
I didn't want Isabella to die.
I didn't want you hurt.
I was selfish and stupid, but I swear I never thought that dock would actually collapse.
I know I chose Rebecca in the water.
I replay it every night.
I don't know why I did it.
Maybe because she was closer.
Maybe because she screamed first.
Maybe because I thought you were behind me.
I don't know.
But please believe one thing: I loved our daughter.
I would trade my life for hers.
There is one thing you still don't know, and before someone else tells you, I need to explain it myself.
Simone stopped.
Below that line, David had written:
The night before the lake, I changed Isabella's life insurance beneficiary paperwork.
Simone's blood ran cold.
There had never been life insurance on Isabella.
She was unborn.
But Simone had a policy.
A very large one.
Her hands started shaking.
She read the next line.
May you like
And the paperwork wasn't for Isabella.
It was for you.
