Chapter 3 - The Cold Interrogation
The handcuffs clicked around Tristan’s wrists with a sharp, heavy snap.
For a man who had spent his entire life maintaining absolute composure, Tristan’s reaction was terrifyingly smooth. He didn't scream, he didn't struggle, and he didn't cry. He simply turned his head toward Detective Miller, his face devoid of any emotion whatsoever.
"This is an absurd mistake," Tristan said, his voice dropping into the icy, precise cadence he used when crushing a business rival. "My wife is suffering from severe sepsis-induced psychosis. She’s making wild accusations because she’s delirious."
"Save it for your lawyer, Mr. Vance," Detective Miller replied coldly. She gestured to the two uniformed officers. "Take him down to Central Processing. Seal his car in the hospital garage and secure a warrant for his residence."
As the officers marched Tristan out of the ICU, he looked back over his shoulder at me. He didn't look angry. He looked at me with a terrifying, calculating stare—a man calculating his next chess move.
Once the door clicked shut, Detective Miller pulled a small digital recorder from her pocket and pulled up a chair beside my bed.
"Mrs. Vance—or do you prefer Reese?" she asked gently.
"Reese," I managed to say, clutching the hospital blanket to my chest. "Please call me Reese."
"Alright, Reese. I need you to tell me everything about the last seventy-two hours," Detective Miller said, hitting the record button. "Dr. Mensah has already briefed me on the chemical analysis of your wound. What did your husband put on your leg?"
I walked her through every detail. The minor scrape from the garden rake. Tristan’s sudden, unusual eagerness to bandage it himself. The brown salve from his private office. The way he locked his office door afterward—something he had never done before in four years of marriage.
And then, I told her about the canceled ride-share.
"He stood in the hallway and watched me shivering," I wept, the emotional dam breaking as the reality hit me. "He told me I was going to embarrass him. He canceled the first Uber from his own phone app using our linked family account. He wanted me to stay in that bed until it was too late."
Detective Miller noted down every word, her jaw set tight.
"Why would he do this, Reese?" she asked softly. "Was there financial trouble? An affair? An insurance policy?"
I shook my head, feeling utterly lost. "We were fine. Or... I thought we were fine. Tristan is a senior risk analyst for Apex Capital. He makes over three hundred thousand dollars a year. We don't have debt. I have my own small interior design practice..."
Suddenly, a memory flashed through my mind—a strange, frantic conversation I had overheard two weeks ago.
Tristan had been standing on our back patio late at night, speaking in hushed, furious whispers into his burner phone. I had assumed it was a high-stakes trade. But I remembered the exact words he had spat into the dark:
“If the audit goes through before the estate transfer, we’re all going to federal prison. I need the liquidation window opened now.”
"The estate..." I whispered aloud, my eyes widening in horror.
"What estate, Reese?" Detective Miller asked, leaning in closer.
"My trust fund," I gasped, the pieces slamming together like falling dominoes. "My grandfather left me a two-million-dollar inheritance trust that matures on my thirty-fifth birthday... or upon my death, with full power of administration granted to my legal spouse."
Detective Miller let out a low, grim whistle. "And how old are you, Reese?"
"I turn thirty-three next month," I whispered. "He couldn't wait two years."
Detective Miller turned off the recorder and stood up. "Stay in this bed, Reese. I’m going to execute a search warrant on your house right now with our hazmat unit. You have two guards posted outside your door. You are safe here."
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As Detective Miller left the room, I looked out the window at the gray rainy skyline of the city. I was safe from the poison in my leg. But as I thought about Tristan’s cold eyes as he was led away in handcuffs, a chill settled deep in my bones.
A man who was willing to rot my leg off from the inside for two million dollars wasn't going to let a pair of handcuffs stop him.
