When the contents were eventually examined, the envelope turned out to contain a single printed photograph.
It showed Richard standing beside Adrian Vale outside a building I didn’t recognize.
On the back, someone had written:
Ask your husband what happened to the last woman who helped him.
I felt cold all over.
There was no name.
No date.
No explanation.
Just a threat designed to make me imagine the worst.
Margaret told me not to draw conclusions from the photograph alone. The investigators would establish when it had been taken, where it had been taken, and who had sent it.
But the message changed the way I saw everything.
I had assumed Richard’s plan was primarily financial.
I had assumed that when he realized the investigation was closing in, he would try to protect himself.
Now I wondered whether the money had been only the beginning.
That afternoon, the investigator contacted Margaret with an update.
