Chapter 7 - THE $750,000 SECRETDetective Miller told me not to jump to conclusions.
My brain ignored him.
For four years, Derek had controlled almost every part of my life.
What I wore.
Who I saw.
How much money I spent.
When I visited Chloe.
Whether I worked.
Even what groceries I bought.
I had thought the purpose was control.
Now I wondered whether control had only been the beginning.
The life insurance policy had been purchased through an independent broker named Paul Jennings.
Miller interviewed him.
Jennings remembered Derek.
"He said his wife was pregnant?"
"No," Miller said. "The policy predates the pregnancy."
Jennings frowned.
"He said they were planning a family."
"Did you meet Clara?"
"No."
"Did that concern you?"
"Everything was electronic."
The application included medical information.
My date of birth.
My Social Security number.
My primary doctor.
Even my history of childhood asthma.
Derek knew all of it.
A nurse had supposedly completed a phone health interview with me.
Except I had never spoken to anyone.
Investigators obtained the recording.
The woman's voice was not mine.
Chloe listened.
Then looked at me.
"I know that voice."
I did too.
Melissa.
Derek's sister.
Melissa denied it.
For approximately forty minutes.
Then detectives played the recording.
She broke.
Martha had asked her to impersonate me.
She claimed she didn't know why.
"What did your mother tell you?" Miller asked.
"That Derek needed the policy for estate planning."
"And you thought impersonating his wife was normal?"
Melissa cried.
"I knew it was wrong."
There it was again.
Everyone knew.
Nobody stopped.
The insurance company froze the policy and began cooperating.
But prosecutors still needed to determine intent.
Forgery was one thing.
Attempted murder was another.
Then they searched Derek's laptop.
His browser history had been partially deleted.
Digital forensics recovered fragments.
Searches from six weeks before the basement attack:
Can accidental falls cause miscarriage at 16 weeks?
Life insurance payout accidental death spouse.
How long after policy starts can beneficiary collect?
Can broken bones cause blood clot death?
I vomited when Miller showed me.
Not metaphorically.
I made it to the bathroom and barely reached the sink.
Chloe held my hair.
"I'm sorry."
I washed my mouth.
"Don't be."
"Clara—"
"I need to know."
We returned to the table.
"Show me everything."
Miller hesitated.
"Everything."
More searches.
How much force breaks ankle.
Domestic accident stairs pregnancy.
Can police recover deleted WhatsApp video.
That last search occurred after the assault.
The others occurred before.
My husband had researched ways a pregnant woman could die.
Then he had broken my foot.
The prosecution amended its investigation.
The basement became a potential attempted homicide scene.
Crime-scene technicians returned to the house.
They photographed the stairs.
Doorframe.
Tools.
Rope.
Then they found blood.
Not mine.
Old blood beneath a utility shelf.
Testing eventually identified it as Derek's father, Harold Holloway.
Harold had died three years earlier.
Official cause:
Accidental fall down basement stairs.
I remember that night.
Martha called us crying.
Derek drove over.
Harold had supposedly been carrying a toolbox when he fell.
He died from head trauma.
The death had been considered accidental.
Now investigators reopened it.
Martha's attorney went ballistic.
She called the new investigation harassment.
But evidence didn't care about outrage.
Harold's autopsy had noted bruising on both wrists.
At the time, paramedics attributed it to the fall.
Detective Miller saw it differently now.
So did I.
"Was Derek there?" I asked.
"No."
"Who found Harold?"
"Martha."
My blood chilled.
Harold had always been quiet.
Kind to me when Martha wasn't around.
A month before he died, he pulled me aside after dinner.
"Keep your own bank account," he whispered.
At the time, I thought he was giving ordinary marriage advice.
Now I remembered his face.
Afraid.
"What if Harold knew?"
Miller nodded.
"We're asking the same question."
Investigators obtained old financial records.
Harold had discovered irregular withdrawals from a family investment account.
Nearly $300,000 had been moved.
Authorized by Martha.
Some went to Derek.
Harold scheduled a meeting with an attorney.
He died the night before that meeting.
My entire body went cold.
Chloe whispered:
"Oh my God."
Police searched Martha's home.
Behind a filing cabinet, they found Harold's old notebook.
One entry:
Martha says Derek needs help again. No more. Clara doesn't know what kind of family she married into. I need to warn her.
Another:
If anything happens to me, check the basement camera.
There had been a camera.
But police records from Harold's death said no surveillance system existed.
Who told investigators that?
Martha.
The camera itself was gone.
The cloud account wasn't.
The manufacturer still retained account metadata.
A device had uploaded video on the night Harold died.
The video file was deleted the following morning.
From Derek's IP address.
Derek claimed he hadn't been at the house.
Cell tower records said otherwise.
His phone connected near his parents' home for forty-seven minutes around the estimated time of Harold's death.
The case exploded.
News vans appeared outside Chloe's apartment.
We moved temporarily to a protected location.
My name leaked anyway.
Headlines called me "The Hammer Wife."
I hated it.
I wasn't a hammer wife.
I was Clara.
I was an accountant.
A sister.
A woman who loved terrible reality television and cinnamon coffee.
I was going to be a mother.
I refused to let the worst thing Derek did become my identity.
My employer at the shelter understood.
They increased my remote hours.
Numbers became comforting.
Numbers didn't scream.
Numbers didn't manipulate.
They either balanced or they didn't.
Then one afternoon, while reviewing my own old tax records for the divorce, I found something.
A charitable deduction.
$25,000.
HOLLOWAY FAMILY OUTREACH FOUNDATION.
I had never approved it.
I searched previous returns.
$18,000.
$31,000.
$22,500.
Every year.
"Derek told me these were business deductions."
Chloe looked over my shoulder.
"What foundation?"
I searched.
The Holloway Family Outreach Foundation supposedly supported women and children escaping domestic violence.
I stared at the screen in disbelief.
"You have got to be kidding me."
Its president was Martha Holloway.
Treasurer:
Derek Holloway.
I downloaded public filings.
Money flowed into the charity.
Then out.
Consulting fees.
Travel.
Administrative expenses.
Payments to companies controlled by Holloway relatives.
The charity wasn't helping abused women.
It appeared to be helping Derek's family.
I sent everything to Rebecca.
By evening, financial-crimes investigators were involved.
The next morning, Miller called.
"Clara, where are you?"
"At Chloe's."
"Stay there."
"What happened?"
"We searched the foundation office."
"And?"
A pause.
"We found a storage room."
"What kind?"
"Records."
"Financial?"
"Some."
He hesitated.
"And photographs."
My stomach tightened.
"Of what?"
"Women."
"What women?"
"We don't know yet."
Then he said something I will never forget.
"Clara, some of them appear injured."
The Holloway family's secrets were no longer cracking.
The entire foundation was collapsing.
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And somewhere inside those files were women whose names I had never heard.
Women who might have needed someone to speak years before I finally did.
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