“You took out a four-million-dollar accidental death policy on me, Mark,” I whispered softly.
Mark took half a step into the room.
His frame blocked the doorway, his silhouette backlit by the afternoon sun streaming through the hallway window.
His wedding ring—the eighteen-karat gold band I had bought him with my very first savings envelope when we were married in Tampa—gleamed under the fluorescent ceiling fixture:
“It was an investment vehicle, Elena,” Mark purred, his eyes narrowing into twin slits of pure, calculating venom:
“You were working overseas in an unstable region.
Doha is two hundred miles from a dozen military flashpoints.
Heather’s corporate consultants told us that international logistics personnel are high-risk targets.
If something happened to you at the hotel, the family needed protection.
We have debts.
We have Mom’s care.
We have the mortgage on this house.”
“This house was paid off in cash, Mark,” I said, my thumb slipping beneath the second plastic sleeve in the folder:
“My late father paid off this four-bedroom house twelve years ago before he passed.
His naval retirement grant paid the clear deed.
You didn’t have a mortgage.”
“We took an equity line, Elena,” a woman’s voice cut in from the top of the stairs.
