…it looks like an accident. Rick knows the road.”
Rick was my husband’s oldest friend. He drove a tow truck.
I read the message three times. The trip. The cabin in the mountains Daniel had booked for our anniversary. The winding road up. He’d insisted on driving separately “because he had a work call on the way.” I’d thought it was strange. Now I understood.
The woman on the phone was named Amber. She was crying. She said she’d been seeing Daniel for a year. He’d told her I was terminally ill and that he was “just waiting until the end.” Then, yesterday, she’d seen his phone. She’d read the messages between him and Rick. She’d realized I wasn’t dying at all.
“I’m not a good person,” she said. “I knew you existed. But I’m not going to let him do this. I already sent all of it to my sister, in case something happens to me too.”
I didn’t go home. I drove straight to the police station with my phone. A detective named Morales read the screenshots twice. Then she asked me a question I’ll never forget. “Mrs. Cole, when did your husband take out the life insurance policy on you?”
“Four months ago,” I said. “Two weeks after my surgery.”
She nodded slowly. “And how much?”
“One point five million.”
She picked up her phone and called her lieutenant.
I never got in the car that Saturday. Instead, I stayed at my sister’s house, and Detective Morales and her team did their jobs. I don’t know all the details. I know they talked to Amber. I know they got a warrant for Daniel’s and Rick’s phones. I know that the messages went back two months, and they were very specific.
Daniel and Rick were arrested the following week and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
I filed for divorce the same day. My lawyer had the life insurance policy canceled. A judge granted me a protective order that will last until long after Daniel’s trial.
Amber testified. So did I. Daniel looked at me across the courtroom the whole time, like he was still waiting for me to understand something. I looked at the jury instead.
He took a plea deal before the verdict. Fifteen years. Rick got ten.
I don’t know how to feel about Amber. She was sleeping with my husband. She also saved my life. I sent her a card after the sentencing. It just said, “Thank you for calling.”
She wrote back three words. “Thank you for answering.”
I’m living in a small house by the lake now. I drive myself everywhere. Last month, on what would have been our anniversary, I drove up that same mountain road, alone, in daylight, very slowly. At the top, I parked at the overlook and sat there for an hour, just breathing.
I’m still here. That’s the whole story.
