Chapter 5 - The Woman in Denver
Vivian wrote back the next morning.
I'd spent the night on Paige's couch, still in my wedding dress until midnight, when she finally talked me into borrowed pajamas. I hadn't slept a wink. I'd stared at the ceiling and listened to the city outside and tried, over and over, to build a version of the past fourteen months that made any kind of sense.
I couldn't.
At 7:43 a.m., my phone buzzed.
I've been waiting for something like this for a long time, the email said. I can talk today. Are you able to come to Denver?
I showed Paige. "Today?" she said.
"That's what it says."
She looked at me for a long moment, then got up and went to find her car keys without another word.
We drove three hours with the windows down and the radio off. I spent most of it staring at the photograph in my lap. By the time we pulled into the hospital parking garage, I'd memorized every detail of it — the yellow flowers, Grant's hand, the way Vivian was looking at the camera like she had no idea what was coming for her.
She met us in the hospital lobby on her lunch break. She was smaller than I'd pictured — shorter, quieter, with darker hair now than in the photo, worn long. She studied my face carefully as we shook hands, the way you look at someone you've spent a long time imagining.
"You're the one he was going to marry," she said.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry about your wedding."
"I'm sorry about yours," I said.
Something shifted across her face. She gestured toward a quiet seating area away from the main corridor, and we sat.
"How much do you already know?" she asked.
"I know you're still legally married to him. I know he filed for divorce three months ago. I know he never once told me you existed."
She nodded slowly. "He told me about you. Eventually." She folded her hands in her lap. "He called me back in February. Said he'd met someone serious and wanted to finally sort things out properly. First time we'd spoken in almost two years."
"Two years," I repeated.
"We separated in 2019. He moved out. I assumed we'd divorce right away. But he never filed. Every time I brought it up, he had a reason to wait. His job was stressful. He was still adjusting to co-parenting Maddie. He needed a little more time." Her voice was even, practiced, like she'd told this story to herself enough times to smooth out the sharp edges. "Eventually I stopped asking. Told myself it didn't matter, since we weren't together anyway. I dated other people. I built a life out here."
"Did you know he had a daughter? Before you married him?"
"Maddie was two when we got married. I knew about her. Met her a handful of times." She paused. "Michelle and Grant had only been separated about a year when he and I got together. It was fast. Too fast, looking back."
I looked down at my hands. No ring now — just the faint pale line where it had been.
"He told me last night that there are things about you I don't know," I said. "Things that would change how I see all of this."
Vivian's expression didn't flicker. "He said that?"
"In a text, yes."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she reached into her jacket pocket and set a folded piece of paper down on the table between us.
"He's been pushing me to sign a post-nuptial agreement for the last three months," she said. "Since he filed. His lawyer sent it to mine. It's designed to cut me out of a property he bought in 2020."
I stared at the paper. "A property."
"A house. About forty minutes from where you live, actually." She met my eyes. "Did he ever mention owning a second property?"
The coffee I'd had in the car turned to ice in my stomach.
"No," I said. "Not once."
"I didn't think so." She tapped the folded paper gently. "Whatever he wants you to believe about me — I'd bet it's tied to that house. He needs me to sign this before the divorce goes final. If I don't, I'm entitled to half its value."
Paige, silent beside me this whole time, leaned in. "How much is it worth?"
Vivian looked at her steadily. "His lawyer's last offer to make me disappear was one hundred eighty thousand dollars."
The lobby hummed on around us. An elevator opened and closed somewhere down the hall.
I thought about the text again. There are things about Vivian you don't know. Things that will change how you see all of this.
May you like
He hadn't been trying to warn me about a dangerous woman.
He'd been trying to stop me from finding one.
