Chương 1
"""The first thing Jonathan searched for was how long a pregnant woman might remain conscious after falling five hundred feet.
My security director placed the printout on my desk without comment, then turned it around so I could read the timestamp myself.
2:14 a.m., Tuesday.
Jonathan had been asleep beside me at 2:14 a.m., or at least I had believed he was.
I stared at the search history while my daughter rolled beneath my ribs hard enough to make me press a hand against my dress.
There were eleven searches from his private laptop over six weeks, and none of them could be mistaken for morbid curiosity.
Countries without extradition treaties.
Inheritance transfer after accidental death.
Private aircraft accident investigations.
Untraceable poisons.
Survival rates from five-hundred-foot falls.
I stopped at the last one.
"Tell me this is fabricated."
Marcus Reed remained standing across from my desk, broad shoulders filling a charcoal suit he hated wearing.
"You pay me not to tell you comforting things."
"Today would be an excellent day to become dishonest."
He looked toward the windows instead.
Thirty floors below us, Miami traffic crawled through Brickell as if nobody's husband had spent six weeks researching how to kill his wife.
I folded the paper once.
Then again.
The edges refused to line up because my fingers were shaking.
"Does he know you found it?"
"No."
"Does anyone?"
"Two people on my cyber team, both under confidentiality restrictions."
I laughed once, and the sound embarrassed me.
Confidentiality restrictions seemed absurdly ordinary beside attempted murder.
Marcus pulled out the chair opposite me but did not sit until I nodded.
"We can take this to law enforcement."
"With searches?"
"With searches, financial anomalies, and what we have on the Cayman accounts."
My eyes lifted.
"What Cayman accounts?"
His expression changed just enough for me to hate him for the next three seconds.
Not because he had done anything wrong, but because he knew something about my marriage before I did.
"Jonathan moved money?"
"Not company money."
"Mine?"
"Technically marital funds from the household account."
"How much?"
"Four hundred and eighty thousand."
That number hurt differently.
It was not enough to damage me financially.
It was enough to prove planning.
I had spent more than that renovating a laboratory floor, yet hearing that my husband had quietly moved it offshore made my stomach tighten.
"When?"
"Over nine months."
Nine months.
Almost exactly as long as I had been pregnant.
I stood too quickly, and the room tilted.
Marcus started toward me.
"I'm fine."
"You nearly fell."
"I'm seven months pregnant and apparently married to an amateur assassin, Marcus, so adjust your definition of fine."
He stopped.
That was one of the reasons I trusted him.
Most men around me heard authority as an invitation to negotiate.
Marcus heard it as information.
I walked to the glass wall and looked at my reflection instead of the city.
At thirty-six, I had spent fourteen years building Calder Aeronautics from a university propulsion project into a defense and emergency-systems company valued at twelve billion dollars.
Business magazines called me the Tech Queen of Miami, a nickname I disliked enough that Jonathan had once bought me a plastic rhinestone crown as a joke.
It still sat in our kitchen junk drawer beside dead batteries and takeout menus.
For some reason, that stupid crown was what nearly made me cry.
"Maybe there's an explanation."
Marcus said nothing.
I turned.
"You could at least pretend."
"You didn't hire me for pretending either."
"I am beginning to regret your job description."
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Then he slid another document across the desk.
Jonathan had increased my life-insurance coverage four months earlier.
The beneficiary was a family trust he controlled.
I sat down.
This time Marcus did not wait for permission before pouring me water.
I drank half the glass and hated that I was suddenly thinking about every breakfast Jonathan had made me.
Every vitamin he had handed me.
Every cup of tea.
Every time he had touched my stomach and whispered to our unborn daughter.
"Has he poisoned me?"
"We found no evidence of that."
"That isn't what I asked."
"No."
Marcus paused.
"We don't know."
I pressed both palms against the desk.
"Get me tested."
That afternoon, my obstetrician drew blood while pretending not to be alarmed by the two security officers outside the examination room.
I told her enough to make the testing medically reasonable and not enough to make the story sound insane.
She listened without interrupting, then tightened the elastic band around my arm.
"Does he have access to your medications?"
"Yes."
"Food?"
"Obviously."
"Supplements?"
"Yes."
"Then until we know more, you don't consume anything he prepares."
The words made my marriage sound like a contaminated laboratory.
On the drive home, I asked Marcus to stop at a grocery store.
He looked at me through the rearview mirror.
"For what?"
"Crackers."
"We have food at the safe apartment."
"I'm not going to a safe apartment."
His hands tightened on the wheel.
"Victoria."
"I need proof of intent."
"You have enough to protect yourself."
"Not enough to prove attempted murder."
"That's a prosecutor's problem."
"It's my problem if he walks."
Marcus pulled into the grocery-store parking lot and killed the engine.
For several seconds neither of us moved.
A woman pushed a cart past us with a toddler standing inside the basket despite the warning printed on the plastic seat.
The child waved at our armored SUV.
I waved back.
Marcus waited until they disappeared between two rows of cars.
"You are not a product prototype."
"I know."
"You do not get to stress-test yourself because you're angry."
"I'm not angry."
He stared at me.
"Fine."
I looked away.
"I'm furious."
"Better."
"I also need to know what he's planning."
"We watch him."
"If he believes I'm suspicious, he changes the plan."
"Then let him."
"And spend the rest of my pregnancy wondering when he tries again?"
May you like
Marcus rubbed his forehead.
I knew that gesture.
