Chapter 9 - The Ghost from San Diego
The crisp autumn air of Atlanta usually brought a sense of renewal, but the morning paper brought an unexpected echo from my past.
I was sitting at the breakfast bar in Garrett’s newly renovated kitchen, reviewing the final budget for the ApexBio Foundation’s nationwide caregiver support initiative, when Garrett slid the local business section across the marble counter.
A small, nondescript column on the financial page caught my eye: Local Tech Startup Executive Facing Foreclosure Amid Federal Fraud Probes.
Below the headline was a photograph. Even in black and white, the pinched, miserable expression was unmistakable. It was Christopher.
According to the brief article, after ApexBio’s fierce market restructuring and the legal fallout surrounding Douglas’s shell companies, the smaller biotech subsidiary where Christopher had secured a mid-level management position had collapsed under a wave of uncollected debt and regulatory investigations. Worse still, Brenda—the coworker he had left me for—had systematically liquidated his personal savings account and vanished to the West Coast with a regional sales director.
"Karma has a very efficient postal service," Garrett remarked quietly, pouring a cup of freshly brewed dark roast coffee and setting it beside my tablet. He leaned against the counter, his eyes scanning my face with careful, protective tenderness. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"There’s nothing to talk about," I said, sliding the paper aside and taking a sip of the coffee. "That life belongs to a different person. A woman who hadn't yet learned what she was worth."
"You built that worth yourself, Rebecca," Garrett reminded me, his voice dropping into that warm, steady register that always made the chaos of the past feel miles away. "Nobody handed it to you. You walked out of a toxic house with two suitcases and forged your own way through sheer grit."
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed on the counter.
The screen flashed with a local Georgia number, but a secondary notification popped up right beneath it: a text message from an unfamiliar number in San Diego.
“Rebecca, please. It’s Florence. I’m at a hotel downtown. Christopher is in the hospital. He had a breakdown. He keeps calling your name. We have nowhere to go.”
I stared at the screen, a strange, hollow quiet settling over my chest. There was no anger left. No bitterness. Just the profound, surreal realization of how completely the tables had turned. The woman who once stood in her kitchen telling me that a wife had to endure betrayal to keep her home was now stranded three thousand miles away, texting her former daughter-in-law for a lifeline.
I looked up at Garrett, who was watching me with calm, unwavering patience.
"Are you going to answer it?" he asked.
"No," I said softly.
May you like
I tapped the screen, blocked the number, and watched the message vanish into the digital ether.
"Some chapters don't deserve a sequel, Garrett," I said, standing up and sliding my tablet into my bag. "Let's go to the office. We have a foundation to launch."
