My Wife Left Me A Penthouse After She Died — And A Business Partner I Never Knew Existed
Part 2
I let my thumb hover over the Facebook post glowing brightly in the dark living room.
The words on the screen blurred together as my brain utterly failed to process them.
I locked the phone screen and tossed the device onto the cracked leather armchair.
The sudden sound of shifting fabric pulled my attention toward the shadows near the window.
A woman sat on my vintage sofa with her legs crossed in absolute stillness.
Her presence in my locked house sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through my veins.
She brushed a speck of dust from the lapel of her perfectly tailored designer coat.
“You must be Arthur.”
I instinctively took a step backward toward the heavy iron fireplace poker.
“Who are you, and how exactly did you get inside my house?”
She offered a calm smile that did absolutely nothing to reassure me.
“The back door lock was remarkably easy to bypass.”
I tightened my trembling hands into rigid fists.
“That sounds like an open admission of breaking and entering.”
She lowered her gaze to her impeccably manicured nails.
“My name is Helen Vargas.”
I mentally searched through the chaotic filing cabinets of my memory for any trace of her.
The unfamiliar name echoed hollowly in my confused mind.
“I have never met you before in my entire life.”
She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward into the faint moonlight.
“No, but I knew Diane far better than anyone else.”
The sound of my dead wife’s name sucked the oxygen straight out of the room.
I forced myself to take a slow breath.
“Diane passed away in a car crash exactly four weeks ago.”
Helen produced a small silver case from the inner pocket of her expensive jacket.
“We were business partners.”
I let out a harsh laugh that sounded utterly devoid of humor.
“My wife was a commercial architect for a miserable downtown firm.”
She clicked the silver case open with her thumb.
“Diane built a great many things during her career.”
She extracted a pristine white business card from the metallic holder.
“Office complexes and shopping malls were absolutely not among them.”
I pointed a shaking finger directly at the front door.
“Get out of my house right this second before I call the police.”
Helen ignored my threat and placed the card softly onto the glass coffee table.
“Diane ran a high-end corporate intelligence consulting firm.”
My knees suddenly lost all their structural integrity.
I collapsed heavily onto the arm of the leather chair.
“You are completely out of your mind.”
Helen folded her hands together and rested her elbows on her knees.
“We specialized in corporate espionage and high-stakes financial leverage.”
I stared at her face, desperately searching for any sign of a cruel practical joke.
“Diane sketched building blueprints on our kitchen island every single Sunday morning.”
Helen shook her head with a mixture of pity and patience.
“Those blueprints were nothing more than elaborate props to maintain her cover story.”
I gripped the armrest so tightly my knuckles turned entirely white.
“You expect me to believe she lied to me every single day of our eight-year marriage?”
She averted her eyes and stared down at the Persian rug.
“She kept you in the dark to keep you completely safe from her enemies.”
I pushed myself up from the chair with a sudden burst of frantic energy.
“Why would an architect ever need to worry about having dangerous enemies?”
Helen finally met my gaze with an expression of cold severity.
“Diane made a massive fortune exploiting the weaknesses of incredibly powerful people.”
I threw my hands up in the air in sheer exasperation.
“We drove secondhand sedans and struggled to pay off a very modest mortgage.”
She stood up slowly, towering over the low table in her stylish heels.
“Sudden displays of immense wealth inevitably attract the worst kind of hostile attention.”
She reached back into the folds of her coat.
“Diane knew the people she ruined would eventually come looking for blood.”
I felt the room spin violently around me.
“Are you telling me the police lied about the drunk driver hitting her car?”
Helen pulled out a thick manila folder wrapped securely in packing tape.
“I am simply telling you she left this particular package specifically for you.”
I stared at the bulky envelope as if it were an active explosive device.
“What could possibly be inside there?”
She stepped forward and shoved the heavy folder roughly against my chest.
“She paid me an exorbitant sum to deliver this only if the absolute worst-case scenario occurred.”
I wrapped my arms around the package instinctively.
“Why did you wait a full month to bring this to me?”
Helen walked past me toward the dimly lit entryway without a single backward glance.
“It took me four entire weeks to ensure her killers were not watching your property.”
I listened to the sharp, rhythmic clicking of her shoes echoing down the hallway.
“Do not trust a single word from the insurance adjusters.”
The heavy oak front door opened and slammed shut with a reverberating bang.
I stood perfectly still in the crushing silence of my dark living room.
A strange emblem made of deep red wax sealed the back flap of the envelope.
I brushed my thumb over the intricate details of the raised crest.
I held the folder my wife had prepared fourteen months before her death, staring at the seal, and wondered what other devastating secrets she had buried inside it for me to find.
