PART 2: A Stranger Let Me Sleep on His Shoulder—Then My Ex-Husband Found Me Before the Plane Even Landed -035

with a sender I recognized.

Samuel Baines.

Two years and eleven months earlier.

Subject:

C. Prescott file

My palms became damp.

I opened it.

There was no attachment.

Only a short exchange.

Sam had written:

Ethan, stop asking questions about this. I mean it. Delete the spreadsheet I sent you.

Ethan had replied twelve minutes later.

You told me the numbers were routine. They aren’t. If Caroline Prescott’s treatment orders were routed through Northbridge, then I need to know why the invoices don’t match the shipments.

I forgot to breathe.

Sam’s response:

This has nothing to do with her treatment outcome. Don’t make connections that aren’t there.

Ethan:

Then explain the missing inventory.

There were no more messages.

I read the exchange three times.

Then a fourth.

Caroline Prescott.

Treatment orders.

Northbridge.

Missing inventory.

My first thought was that it had to be a coincidence.

Prescott was a common enough

surname.

Except Adrian had told me his sister’s name only hours earlier.

Caroline.

Leukemia.

And Prescott Health was listed in the Northbridge documents.

My phone rang.

Ethan.

This time I answered.

Neither of us spoke at first.

Then he said, “Elena?”

I nearly hung up at the sound of his voice.

Five years of marriage lived inside two syllables.

Good mornings.

Arguments.

Birthday dinners.

Lily’s first cry in the delivery room.

Nights waiting for him to come home.

The sound of keys turning in a lock.

“Why is Caroline Prescott in your email?”

Silence.

Then Ethan exhaled.

“You found it.”

“You told me to.”

“I wasn’t sure you still had those messages.”

“What is Northbridge?”

“Elena—”

“No. Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Say my name like you’re preparing me for something.”

A pause.

“I’m not.”

“You always do.”

He didn’t answer.

I stood and walked toward the window.

Below me,