Husband Fled with First Love, I Saved World with Medical Expertise Chapter 06
Twenty-one days into the lockdown, Adrian finally resurfaced on Instagram.
It was his first post in half a month.
Nine photos.
The first was the Port Kensington Harbor Bridge at golden hour, the lighting filtered to perfection.
The second showed a table laden with rustic, home-cooked dishes, artfully arranged.
Photos three through five were candid street photography: a chic café, a local market.
The sixth was just a hand holding a glass of red wine.
There was a watch on the wrist — Adrian’s Omega. I recognized the scratch on the band.
In the seventh, another hand entered the frame for a toast.
Slim. Pale. No ring on the left hand.
The nails were painted a dusty rose pink.
I remembered that being Vivian’s signature shade since our undergrad days.
The caption was only two words:
Daily life.
The comments below it rolled in exactly the way I expected.
— Living it up in the Southern Hemisphere, huh, Adrian?
— That food looks way too good lol.
— Take care of yourself out there, man.
Not one of them mentioned Vivian.
But every single one of them knew.
I captured the post too.
Then my phone buzzed again.
Evelyn had forwarded me a message.
It was something Adrian had posted in the family group chat:
[Everything’s fine here. Don’t worry. I’ll come see you all once the lockdown’s lifted.]
Right after that, Evelyn sent a voice message of her own. “Adrian’s struggling out there all alone. You all need to check on him more.”
By himself.
I set the phone down and put on my coat.
It was my third day back at the institute.
Professor Harrison had given me a small office. The data team was next door.
The neighborhood had started issuing travel permits, and it took four checkpoints to get from home to the institute and back.
Every morning I left at seven. Every night I got home around nine.
Evelyn hated that I wasn’t home cooking anymore, but the neighborhood was handing out supply boxes, so she wasn’t going hungry.
What she hated was that no one was waiting on her now.
“You’re a housewife. Why are you out playing career woman? What would Adrian think if he knew?”
“I’m not a housewife,” I said. “I have a doctorate in epidemiology.”
She froze for a second, as if it was the first time she’d ever heard the words.
Maybe it really was the first time she’d listened.
That night, Adrian tried to video call me.
I declined it.
He called again.
I declined that one too.
When it rang a third time, Evelyn snatched my phone off the counter and swiped ‘Accept’.
“Adrian! Look at your wife — she won’t even pick up your calls —”
On the screen, Adrian was lounging on a sectional. Behind him were floor-to-ceiling windows.
Outside, I could see a lawn and a fence.
It wasn’t a hotel.
It was a house.
“Claire.” Adrian leaned closer to the camera. “Did you read the agreement?”
“I did.”
“Did you sign it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it wasn’t fair.”
He frowned. “What part of it wasn’t fair? I gave you the apartment.”
“The apartment with a massive mortgage, and a bank account you emptied out. Adrian, you call that a gift?”
Something flickered on the right edge of the screen.
Short hair. Black T-shirt.
Vivian.
She stayed off camera, but not far enough.
Evelyn didn’t notice.
Adrian’s eyes shifted right for half a second, then came back to me. “We can talk about it.”
Then he hung up.
We can talk about it.
His code for: “I’ll wait until you’re desperate enough to crawl back.”
But this time was different.
My lawyer, Daniel Mercer, had already pulled the transfer records for the retail property.
It sold for $132,000, almost half of its market value.
An obvious below-market transfer.
More importantly, Daniel had found something else in the course of his investigation.
Adrian had taken out a second mortgage on our apartment in my name.
Amount: $82,000.
The cash hit his account three months ago.
The signature line bore my name.
But I hadn’t signed it.
I am a lefty; my handwriting always has a distinct slant.
The signature on the mortgage papers was upright, calculated, and unmistakably right-handed.
Daniel called it what it was: felony forgery and mortgage fraud.
A criminal offense.
I locked the photocopy of the document in my desk drawer at the office.
The Evidence folder was getting thicker by the day.
I wasn’t in a hurry.
If you want to bury a snake, you have to wait until it slithers into the hole you dug.