Chapter 5 - THE SIGNATURE THAT COST ME EVERYTHING
Vincent stared at the photograph.
“I never approved that inspection.”
Daniel remained calm.
“Then someone used your credentials.”
Vincent looked at me.
“Anna, I swear—”
“Please don't.”
Two words.
That was all I could manage.
Because every explanation now sounded like another promise.
And promises had become the most painful things in my marriage.
Daniel placed the photograph beside the brass tag.
“The authorization was entered at 6:42 yesterday morning.”
Vincent frowned.
“I was home at that time.”
“So was I,” I whispered.
I remembered the morning clearly.
Vincent had been standing in our bedroom, fastening his cuff links.
He'd kissed my forehead without noticing I was crying.
We had argued the previous night about Sophia joining our vacation.
At 6:42, he had been beside me.
Not at the office.
Not at the hangar.
Daniel continued.
“The system allows remote approvals. Someone could have accessed your account.”
Vincent immediately called his cybersecurity director.
I listened as he demanded password records and device logs.
Then he left to speak privately.
Daniel lingered.
“Anna, there's another reason I came.”
“What is it?”
He hesitated.
“Someone from Moretti security has been asking questions about me.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of questions?”
“Where I live. Who my family is. Whether I have financial problems.”
“Why?”
“I think somebody wants to discredit me before I finish explaining what happened.”
I looked at the brass tag.
“Can you keep investigating?”
“Yes. But I need access to the original maintenance records.”
“Vincent can authorize that.”
Daniel gave me a sad smile.
“He can. The question is whether he will.”
After Daniel left, I called my mother.
She lived in a modest house outside Providence and had never been comfortable with the Moretti family's wealth.
When she answered, I finally cried.
Not the quiet tears I'd swallowed all week.
Real tears.
“I want to come home, Mom.”
Her answer came immediately.
“Then come home, sweetheart.”
“What about Vincent?”
“Anna, you've spent your whole marriage asking what Vincent needs.”
I covered my mouth.
My mother continued gently.
“What do you need?”
I looked down at my stomach.
“Somewhere my daughter will be safe.”
“Then you already know.”
That evening, Vincent returned carrying a small velvet box.
I recognized it.
Inside was the gold bracelet he'd purchased when we learned our baby was a girl.
A delicate chain with a tiny star.
He had promised to give it to her after she was born.
“I thought you might want to keep this close,” he said.
I stared at the bracelet.
“Vincent, I'm leaving.”
He went still.
“What?”
“When the doctors release me, I'm going to Rhode Island.”
“With your mother?”
“Yes.”
He sat down.
“Anna, we're married.”
“I remember.”
“You can't make a decision like that without talking to me.”
I looked at him.
“Did you talk to me before bringing Sophia?”
He lowered his head.
“Did you talk to me before leaving me in that airplane?”
“Anna—”
“Did you consider our daughter when you carried another woman away?”
His eyes filled.
“I made a terrible mistake.”
“Yes.”
“I want to fix it.”
“You can't fix everything with money.”
He pushed the bracelet toward me.
“I know that.”
For a moment, I almost believed him.
Then his phone lit up.
Richard Hale.
Vincent glanced at the screen.
I watched the familiar hesitation.
The instinct to answer business first.
He turned the phone facedown.
“I'm here,” he said.
It should have comforted me.
Instead, I wondered why that simple decision had taken an emergency landing to make.
The next morning, Vincent told me Richard had been suspended pending an internal review.
Sophia had also been questioned.
Daniel was working with independent investigators.
There was movement.
There were explanations.
But my marriage still felt empty.
I was discharged three days later.
Vincent offered to drive me to Rhode Island.
I refused.
My mother arrived with her old station wagon.
As she helped me into the passenger seat, I saw Vincent standing outside the hospital.
He held the small velvet box.
I had left it behind.
Our eyes met.
He looked like a man who had finally realized that something precious could be lost.
Then Daniel hurried across the parking lot.
He was carrying a sealed evidence envelope.
“Anna, wait.”
Vincent turned.
Daniel stopped beside my window.
“I found something in the aircraft's service compartment.”
He opened the envelope.
Inside was a small silver necklace.
A heart-shaped pendant.
I recognized it immediately.
It had belonged to my grandmother.
I'd given it to Sophia six months earlier after her mother died, hoping we might become friends.
But that wasn't what frightened me.
The pendant was open.
Inside, folded into a tiny square, was a photograph.
Daniel carefully unfolded it.
The picture showed Richard Hale standing beside another man in front of the jet.
And between them stood someone I recognized.
May you like
Vincent's father.
A man who had supposedly retired from Moretti Holdings five years earlier.
