Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN AT THE TABLEHer name was Melissa Reed.
She was thirty-four, married, and had worked with Cole Meridian's outside consulting firm for four years.
She had been seated six chairs away from Laura at dinner.
When Ethan struck Laura, Melissa had covered her mouth in apparent horror.
When the insurance policy appeared, she had looked down at the table.
Laura hadn't noticed then.
Now she remembered.
Melissa had left before the police arrived.
The photograph showed Ethan kissing her outside the Beaumont Hotel.
The timestamp was seven months earlier.
One month before the insurance policy.
Laura felt the familiar pain of betrayal, but it wasn't as powerful as she expected.
Maybe because infidelity seemed almost ordinary compared with everything else.
Rebecca studied the photograph.
“Who sent this?”
“I don't know.”
“Don't respond.”
Laura nodded.
Marcus called fifteen minutes later.
He had found M.R.
Melissa Reed.
The calendar entry wasn't coincidence.
She had attended the meeting with the insurance broker.
Laura stared at the wall.
“She pretended to be me.”
“We don't know that yet,” Rebecca cautioned.
But they both suspected it.
The next morning, Melissa didn't answer her phone.
She didn't arrive at work.
Her husband said she had left before sunrise.
By noon, company security footage showed Melissa entering Ethan's office two nights before the dinner and removing a laptop.
That laptop contained financial records relevant to the Northstar transaction.
Rebecca notified investigators.
At 2:00 p.m., Ethan was ordered to stay away from Laura temporarily while the court reviewed the assault.
By 4:00, Cole Meridian's board suspended him as CEO pending investigation.
At 4:12, Ethan called Laura seventeen times.
She answered none.
At 4:30, he sent a message.
You have no idea what you're doing.
Then another.
Your father would be ashamed of you.
That one hurt.
Ethan knew it would.
Laura's father, Robert Bennett, had adored him.
Robert had called Ethan “the son I never had.”
Before dying from cancer, Robert had made Laura promise she would let Ethan help with the company.
“You don't have to carry everything alone,” he had told her.
Laura had interpreted that as permission to trust.
Ethan had interpreted it as access.
At 6:15 p.m., another message arrived.
If the company falls, it's on you.
Laura finally responded.
The company isn't falling.
You are.
She blocked his number.
Two days later, police located Melissa at her sister's home in Connecticut.
She agreed to speak with investigators.
Her first interview lasted three hours.
Then Rebecca received a call.
“Laura, you need to hear this.”
Melissa admitted the affair.
It had lasted almost two years.
She also admitted helping Ethan create Northstar.
But she denied knowing the full purpose.
“He said it was a management buyout,” Melissa explained during a recorded interview Laura later heard.
“He said Laura wanted out.”
The investigator asked:
“Did Laura ever tell you that?”
“No.”
“Did you verify it?”
“No.”
Melissa admitted opening bank accounts.
She admitted receiving payments.
Then came the insurance policy.
“Did you participate in a verification call pretending to be Laura Cole?”
Melissa cried.
“Yes.”
Laura closed her eyes.
The investigator continued.
“Why?”
“Ethan said Laura knew.”
“Why pretend to be her if she knew?”
Melissa had no answer.
Finally, she whispered:
“He said it was temporary.”
“What was temporary?”
“The policy.”
The investigator paused.
“Insurance policies aren't temporary paperwork.”
Melissa began sobbing.
Then she said something nobody expected.
“He told me Laura was going to be gone soon anyway.”
The room on the recording became silent.
Laura stopped breathing.
The investigator asked:
“What did you think he meant?”
Melissa's answer was barely audible.
“I thought he meant divorce.”
Laura didn't.
Not anymore.
Rebecca paused the recording.
“We don't have evidence Ethan intended physical harm.”
Laura stared at her.
“He hit me with a plate.”
“I know.”
“He secretly insured my life.”
“Yes.”
“He told his mistress I would be gone soon.”
“Yes.”
Laura's hands trembled.
Rebecca leaned closer.
“Suspicion isn't proof. We follow the evidence.”
Laura nodded.
She hated that Rebecca was right.
So they followed it.
And the evidence led somewhere unexpected.
The twenty-five-million-dollar policy had almost been canceled two months earlier because a premium payment failed.
Ethan personally transferred money to keep it active.
On the same day, he searched online for information about accidental-death provisions.
Investigators recovered the search history.
Laura felt sick when she saw it.
Then Marcus found another transaction.
A payment of $50,000.
It had gone to a company called Blackridge Security Consulting.
Laura had never heard of it.
Rebecca had.
The owner, Victor Dane, had once worked as a private investigator.
“What did Ethan hire him for?” Laura asked.
Rebecca looked uneasy.
“We're going to find out.”
They did.
Blackridge had been following Laura for almost six months.
Photographs existed of her leaving restaurants.
Driving to work.
Visiting her mother.
Jogging alone.
Even entering Rebecca's office.
Ethan had known she was investigating him long before the dinner.
Which meant the dinner wasn't simply a celebration.
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Ethan had invited Laura into a room filled with witnesses for a reason.
And suddenly Laura wondered whether his violence that night had really been spontaneous at all.
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