Chapter 3 - TESSA’S LOCKED DOOR
Tessa lived in Rogers Park with her younger sister, Maya Morgan.
I learned that from Martin.
Not from illegally pulling her entire life apart.
Important distinction.
Maya was twenty-two.
Congenital kidney disease.
Three surgeries.
Medical debt.
Tessa had dropped out of a respiratory-therapy program two years earlier when their mother died.
Now she worked through a household-care agency.
Thirty-five dollars billed.
Twenty-five to her.
I stared at the payroll report.
“What?”
Martin asked.
“The agency makes ten dollars an hour for sending her here.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Insurance.”
“Administration.”
“Placement.”
I thought of Tessa rotating my ankle carefully while Lauren avoided looking below my waist.
“Pay her more.”
Martin looked at me.
“No.”
I frowned.
“Excuse me?”
“She’s a witness.”
Right.
“Changing compensation now complicates things.”
I hated when lawyers were useful.
So we did nothing privately.
Instead, detectives contacted Tessa and told her someone involved in the investigation had discussed removing her from the house.
They offered protective measures.
Tessa’s response:
“Am I fired?”
The detective apparently laughed.
“No.”
“Then I have a shift.”
She came anyway.
I stared when she entered.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
She put the towels down.
“Police said there was no immediate threat.”
“You believe police?”
“More than unidentified men in expensive suits.”
Fair.
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“Someone specifically said to get rid of you.”
She stopped.
For the first time, fear crossed her face.
Not for herself.
“Maya.”
“She’s safe.”
I had asked police to check without sending any of my people.
Tessa noticed the phrasing.
“You didn’t send security?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know which of them belongs to me anymore.”
That sentence tasted terrible.
Tessa pulled a chair closer.
“Then maybe none of them should belong to you.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“People.”
She shrugged.
“Bad word.”
“You can have employees.”
“Not people who belong to you.”
There was the difference again.
She always found language I had spent my life avoiding.
Before she could begin my morning care, the elevator alarm sounded downstairs.
Then shouting.
Martin rushed in.
“Police are here.”
“Why?”
“Dominic tried to leave.”
My pulse changed.
“He knows?”
“Patricia panicked.”
She had been interviewed that morning.
Forty minutes in, she asked for a lawyer.
Then offered cooperation.
Patricia had photographed documents for Dominic for months.
She claimed she never touched the mattress.
But she knew it had been modified.
Why cooperate?
Because Dominic had told her she would be blamed if anything surfaced.
Predictable.
He kept everyone afraid separately.
Police stopped Dominic at the private garage.
They found two passports.
Cash.
A laptop.
And a printed copy of my fake harbor addendum.
Enough for current obstruction and fraud-related investigation.
Not yet enough to prove the shooting.
Then Lauren disappeared.
Her driver said she canceled the wedding fitting.
Her phone went dark.
Her family apartment empty.
I felt something I did not expect.
Not rage.
Relief.
At least I no longer had to pretend we were still engaged.
Then the detective called.
Lauren had boarded a chartered flight.
Destination:
Toronto.
Departure stopped before takeoff.
She was detained for questioning, not arrested immediately.
Good.
Evidence.
Process.
Tessa watched me end the call.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She nodded.
No empty reassurance.
Then:
“Do you still want me to do the morning routine?”
I almost laughed.
The house was full of detectives.
My cousin had tried to flee.
My fiancée was being questioned.
And Tessa was asking about ankle rotation.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She washed her hands.
Then noticed something on my right hip.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
“The skin.”
The irritated area had worsened slightly despite the new mattress.
Not severe.
But real.
She called the nurse.
No hesitation.
For the next week, I spent more time on side positioning and pressure relief.
The irony was brutal.
Someone had tried to use my paralysis to make me look incapable.
Instead, their sabotage reminded me how serious my actual care needed to be.
That night, Tessa did not go home.
Not because she stayed with me.
Because police advised her and Maya to spend two nights at a hotel while Dominic’s associates were questioned.
I paid nothing.
Witness-protection resources arranged it.
She insisted.
Good.
Then at 11:20 p.m., Martin entered my room carrying a sealed evidence envelope.
“What?”
“Dominic’s laptop.”
“Police found an archived route schedule from the night you were shot.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
I knew.
“Who accessed it?”
Martin sat.
“Dominic.”
“How long before the ambush?”
“Thirty-seven minutes.”
The bullet that shattered my T12 vertebra had been fired from a parking structure as my car left a private meeting.
Only six people knew the route changed that night.
Dominic was one.
Then Martin added:
“There’s a payment.”
“What payment?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars to a security subcontractor three days before the shooting.”
“Company?”
Martin looked at me.
“Bellweather.”
The same shell company in the harbor deal.
I stared at him.
“Dominic shot me?”
“We don’t know.”
Correct.
“But he paid someone connected to the route leak.”
“Yes.”
Then:
“Lauren’s family office transferred one hundred thousand into Bellweather two weeks later.”
My chest went cold.
May you like
The woman who could no longer stand to look at my paralyzed legs—
might have helped pay the people who put me in the chair.
