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Detective Bennett closed her notebook.
“There’s something else.”
My eyes lifted.
“What?”
She reached into her folder and removed a printed still image from Ryan’s resort video.
There he was, smiling with the whiskey glass in his hand.
I looked away.
“We recovered several messages from your husband’s phone,” she said. “Some from before he left. Some during the trip.”
My stomach turned.
“What did they say?”
She hesitated.
Nathan moved closer to my bed.
Detective Bennett placed one page on the blanket before me.
It was a transcript.
Ryan to someone named Vanessa.
She’s losing it again. Says she’s bleeding. I swear she’ll do anything to keep me trapped at home.
Vanessa had replied:
Then don’t let her. You deserve one weekend without her drama.
Ryan:
Exactly. Nanny starts Monday anyway. After that I’m talking to a lawyer. I’m not spending my thirties chained to a crying baby and a wife who looks like death.
My hand went numb.
The page blurred.
Vanessa.
I knew that name.
Ryan’s “business consultant.”
A woman who had started appearing in his life six months earlier with late calls, private lunches, and perfume that clung to his shirts.
I had asked him once if something was going on.
He laughed and told me pregnancy had made me paranoid.
Detective Bennett turned another page.
Ryan:
Aspen first. Divorce later. I just need to make sure she doesn’t get half.
Vanessa:
My attorney said timing matters. Don’t leave the house voluntarily before you file. Make her look unstable if you can. Document everything.