Chapter 4 - THE WIFE WHO CAME BEFORE ME
-4
The police returned immediately.
What had begun as possible bigamy and financial fraud became something else the moment they saw the October itinerary and the message about survivors.
Detectives photographed everything.
The phone went into evidence.
The lockbox went with it.
The airline’s corporate security department became involved within an hour.
Federal investigators were notified because the messages concerned aircraft and interstate travel.
Grant called me seventeen times.
I answered none.
At 4:38 p.m., he sent one text.
Rachel, whatever you think you found, Reid is not what he seems. Do not trust Savannah.
I showed it to Savannah.
She stared at the phone.
“Of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“He’s going to make me the liar.”
She looked exhausted.
“He always told me you were unstable before you died.”
I almost laughed.
“Apparently I had a very complicated death.”
My sister arrived that evening and took Cody to a hotel near the airport.
Before he left, Cody hugged Savannah.
Then he looked at Lila sleeping against her chest.
“Is she really my sister?”
Savannah looked at me.
I nodded.
Grant was listed as the father.
Whatever else happened, I would not make the baby carry uncertainty adults created.
Savannah crouched carefully.
“Yes.”
Cody touched Lila’s tiny sock.
“She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No.”
His words nearly destroyed Savannah.
“Neither did you,” she whispered.
After Cody left, investigators asked Savannah and me separately about Grant’s history.
One detective, Elena Ruiz, returned around nine with a question.
“Did Grant ever tell either of you he had been married before Rachel?”
I stared.
“No.”
Savannah shook her head.
Ruiz placed an old marriage record on the table.
Grant Michael Ashford.
Natalie Jane Pierce.
Married thirteen years ago in Arizona.
I did the math.
Grant and I had started dating twelve years ago.
“What happened?”
Ruiz did not answer immediately.
“The marriage ended with Natalie’s death.”
My skin prickled.
“How?”
“Small aircraft accident.”
The room became very quiet.
Savannah covered her mouth.
Grant had been a flight instructor then.
Natalie Pierce died when a four-seat private aircraft crashed in rural New Mexico.
Grant was supposed to be aboard.
He was not.
The official report stated he became ill hours before departure.
Natalie traveled with another licensed pilot.
Both died.
Mechanical failure was listed as the probable cause.
Grant received a life-insurance payment.
“How much?”
I asked.
“Approximately nine hundred thousand dollars.”
I stared.
“Why didn’t a background check show this?”
“Depends what was checked.”
Ruiz explained that Natalie used her maiden name professionally. Grant rarely mentioned the marriage afterward. The accident occurred before he joined his current airline.
Nothing about being widowed would necessarily appear in ordinary public biography records unless someone knew where to look.
“Did Grant cause the crash?”
Savannah asked.
Ruiz shook her head.
“There’s no evidence of that.”
Yet.
I heard the word even though she didn’t say it.
“Why are you showing us?”
“Because Captain Reid Mercer appears in the accident report.”
My body went cold.
“How?”
“He was the owner of the flight school that maintained the aircraft.”
Savannah closed her eyes.
Reid again.
Ruiz continued.
“He was also the person who told investigators Grant became ill and could not make the trip.”
“Did anyone verify it?”
“Grant visited an urgent care clinic that morning.”
“What diagnosis?”
“Severe gastroenteritis.”
“Could that be faked?”
“I’m not going to speculate.”
I understood.
Facts first.
Emotion later.
We searched what public records we could.
Natalie Pierce had been twenty-eight.
Teacher.
Amateur photographer.
Beautiful smile.
No children.
Her parents were dead now.
She had one living sister.
Katherine Pierce.
Detective Ruiz said investigators would contact her officially.
I did something less sensible.
I searched social media.
Katherine lived in Tulsa.
Her public profile contained old photographs.
One stopped me.
Natalie and Grant at a barbecue.
Reid stood behind them.
I had seen him before.
Not only in Savannah’s wedding photograph.
He had been at my wedding too.
Different suit.
Same smile.
Grant had introduced him as “the man who taught me everything.”
Apparently that included attending all his marriages.
I kept searching.
A post from twelve years earlier.
One year after Natalie died.
Katherine wrote:
Some people move on because they heal. Some people move on because grief was never theirs to begin with.
I stared.
Savannah leaned closer.
“She suspected him.”
We contacted Ruiz before doing anything further.
She asked us not to reach out until investigators spoke to Katherine.
At 10:12 p.m., Ruiz returned.
Her expression told me something had changed.
“Katherine wants to speak to you.”
The video call began ten minutes later.
A woman in her forties appeared.
Same eyes as Natalie.
She looked at me for a long time.
“You’re Grant’s wife.”
“Yes.”
“Current wife?”
I swallowed.
“Apparently one of them.”
Katherine almost smiled, but sadness stopped it.
Then Savannah introduced herself.
Katherine stared.
“You too?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus.”
I asked the question immediately.
“Did Grant kill Natalie?”
Katherine looked away.
“I couldn’t prove it.”
“What made you suspect him?”
“My sister was going to leave him.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Why?”
“He lied constantly.”
“About women?”
“Money first.”
Katherine explained.
Grant and Natalie had financial problems despite her family money.
Grant wanted to buy into Reid’s flight school.
Natalie refused.
Then she discovered Grant had taken out additional life insurance on her.
“He said it was normal because they flew together.”
“How much?”
“Nearly a million.”
I looked at Ruiz.
Same payout.
Katherine continued.
“Natalie became frightened two weeks before the crash.”
“Why?”
“She found maintenance paperwork.”
Savannah leaned closer.
“What paperwork?”
“I don’t know exactly. Something about that aircraft.”
“Did she tell police?”
“She planned to after the trip.”
My stomach dropped.
“She still boarded it?”
Katherine looked angry.
“She believed Reid when he said the issue had been corrected.”
Reid.
Always Reid.
“Why wasn’t Grant aboard?”
“He called her that morning and said he was sick.”
“Was she angry?”
“Furious.”
Katherine’s voice weakened.
“She told me Grant had spent days insisting they take that trip together. Then suddenly he couldn’t come.”
I closed my eyes.
The October itinerary seemed to glow in my memory.
Grant.
Rachel.
Cody.
Three aboard.
Then a sudden change?
A believable reason Grant might not fly?
“Who was the other pilot?”
I asked.
“Evan Cole. Instructor at Reid’s school.”
“Any connection to Grant?”
“Friend.”
“Did he know about the maintenance concern?”
“I don’t know.”
Katherine disappeared from view for a moment.
When she returned, she held an envelope.
“Natalie mailed me this the day before she died.”
She unfolded an old photocopy.
“Police saw it. They said it didn’t prove anything.”
“What is it?”
“A list.”
She held it to the camera.
Grant.
Reid.
An insurance agent.
A mechanic.
Three aircraft registration numbers.
At the bottom, Natalie had written:
They make more money when something goes wrong than when planes stay in the air.
Savannah whispered, “Insurance fraud.”
Katherine nodded.
“Reid’s flight school had three aircraft destroyed or severely damaged in six years.”
“All insured?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to Reid?”
“Nothing.”
“He wasn’t charged?”
“No.”
“The accidents were ruled unrelated.”
I looked at Detective Ruiz.
Her face had hardened.
Katherine continued.
“After Natalie died, I spent years trying to prove Grant knew something.”
“What happened?”
“Grant threatened to sue me.”
“Did Reid?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“Reid did something worse.”
“What?”
“He came to my house.”
My skin prickled.
“What did he say?”
“That Natalie was dead and I could either let her rest or destroy what remained of my own life chasing theories.”
Savannah whispered a curse.
Katherine’s voice became quieter.
“Then he told me something nobody else knew.”
“What?”
“He knew I had applied for a job overseas.”
“So?”
“I hadn’t told anyone except Natalie.”
The implication was clear.
Reid had access to information Natalie had shared privately.
Her phone.
Her email.
Something.
Katherine leaned toward the camera.
“If Grant and Reid planned another private flight with your names on it, do not let anyone tell you it’s coincidence.”
“I won’t.”
“There’s something else.”
I waited.
“After Natalie died, Grant came to see me once.”
“When?”
“About six months later.”
“What did he want?”
“A box of her belongings.”
“What belongings?”
“Photographs. journals. old flight documents.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.”
Her expression changed.
“I lied and told him everything had been thrown away.”
“Where is the box?”
“My storage room.”
She looked toward Detective Ruiz.
“Police can have it.”
Ruiz nodded.
Katherine looked back at me.
“There’s a photograph inside you should see.”
“What photograph?”
“Natalie took it at Reid’s hangar three weeks before she died.”
She described it.
Grant and Reid stood beside the aircraft that later crashed.
Between them was another man.
A mechanic.
I didn’t recognize the name Katherine gave.
But Detective Ruiz did.
Her entire expression changed.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Ruiz asked her to repeat it.
“Martin Vale.”
Ruiz looked at me.
“Martin Vale currently supervises maintenance at Grant’s airline.”
The past had not stayed in Arizona.
Grant had carried it with him.
May you like
Reid had carried it.
And the mechanic connected to Natalie’s fatal aircraft was still working around commercial planes today.
