If no one would give them to me willingly, I’d find them myself. If only I could get a glimpse of what my life had been a year ago.
I stepped inside, the office was neat and organized. Tasteful furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. A massive desk with a computer, a few files stacked precisely, pens arranged at right angles.
I closed the door behind me softly.
If everyone I loved was keeping secrets that might kill me, then I had the right to know what they were.
CHAPTER 15
Claudette
Michael’s laptopsat on his desk, closed but still warm beneath my fingers. Recently used. I opened it and the screen lit up immediately, harsh blue light making me squint.
Password prompt.
I typed his birthday. Nothing. My birthday. Still nothing.
I sighed in frustration, glancing briefly at the door before trying one last time. Our anniversary. My fingers moved before I could second-guess myself.
The laptop unlocked.
His password was the day we got married. It should have felt sweet. It didn’t. It was the last thing I could focus on right now.
I opened the browser, cursor hovering as I tried to figure out what I was even looking for. The browsing history might as well have been the most boring thing ever—travel sites, restaurant reservations, news articles about technology and business acquisitions. Nothing personal. Nothing that hinted at a life with me. Nothing that proved we’d ever existed before Vegas.
His email folders were the same. Work correspondence, meeting schedules, board member communications.
Nothing.
Not one message between us.
I checked his photo library next, scrolling through folders organized by date like everything Michael touched. Business events, property photos, screenshots of documents.
Not a single photo of us together. Nothing except that wedding video everyone had seen.
My hands trembled on the trackpad, the absence louder than any evidence could have been.
A year of being together—a year I couldn’t remember—and there was nothing. No digital footprint of our relationship, no saved messages, no candid photos. Like I’d been erased from his life. Like we’d never existed before Vegas.
The absence was louder than any evidence could have been.
I closed the laptop, that sick feeling in my stomach growing and spreading through my chest. My breathing was coming faster now, shallow and uneven.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
I turned to his desk drawers and yanked the first one open. Pens, business cards arranged in a small wooden box, a leather notebook with meeting notes in Michael’s precise handwriting, charging cables wound neatly with velcro ties because of course they were.
I slammed it shut harder than I meant to. The sound echoed in the quiet office, making me flinch.
The second drawer didn’t budge. Locked.
My breath caught as I yanked on it, but it didn’t budge. Why would he lock one drawer? What was in there that needed hiding?
I looked around the office, pulse hammering in my ears. Where would Michael hide something important?
My eyes drifted to the file cabinet—tall, metal, ominously neat.
I crossed to it and tried the top drawer.
