Chapter 4
Three weeks before the helicopter, I found the letter from the bank on Richard's desk. Not hidden. Just left there, face up, as if he no longer cared if I saw it.
It wasn't addressed to me. It was addressed to Richard Sterling Holdings, LLC. Past Due Notice, second request. The amount had six figures before the decimal. I didn't touch it at first. I just stood in the doorway of his home office and looked at it while he was in the shower. The house was quiet except for the water running upstairs and the low hum of the air conditioning.
On his desk, next to the bank letter, was a spreadsheet printed on legal paper. Two columns highlighted in yellow. Liabilities. Distributions. At the bottom, a line circled in blue ink: O. Sterling Trust - $4.2M at death, spousal transfer immediate. My trust. The one his father had set up when we married. The one that said if I died, everything poured directly to Richard as surviving spouse.
I heard the shower shut off. I didn't move. I let my hand rest on my belly the way I had started to do without thinking. I was almost six months pregnant then.
Richard came downstairs in a towel around his waist, hair wet. He saw me standing there and didn't flinch. He just smiled the way he did when he was caught but wanted me to feel rude for noticing.
"You're in my office," he said.
"The bank says you owe them two hundred and forty thousand by the fifteenth," I said.
He walked to the desk, picked up the letter, folded it in half and slid it into a drawer. Smooth. Practiced.
"Cash flow," he said. "It'll clear when the Meridian deal closes."
The Meridian deal had not closed in eight months. I knew because I'd driven past the empty lot on Route 17 where the sign still said COMING SOON - STERLING PLAZA. Weeds up to the frame.
Later that day I called Diane at the bank. She'd been our loan officer since we bought the house. I didn't ask about Richard's business. I asked about the trust.
"Olivia, that document still lists your husband as sole beneficiary on death?" she asked me, her voice careful.
"Yes," I said.
"If anything happened to you," she said, and then paused, "he would control the full principal. Not the baby. Not a guardian. Him."
I thanked her and hung up. I sat in our kitchen with my hand on the cold granite and felt the baby move for the first time that week, a small flutter low and deep.
That night Richard was on the phone in his office with the door closed. I heard him through the wall. He thought I was asleep.
"Yeah, just the two of us," he said. "No co-pilot necessary for the coastal run. Private charter, I want the side door clear for photos." A pause. "Saturday if weather holds. I'll wire the deposit."
I went to his laptop after he left for a dinner meeting. The browser was still open. Search history: helicopter charter no witness requirement private coastal tour. And an email receipt from Coastal Air Charters for $3,800, dated the next day. Notes line: Pax: 2 - R. Sterling + spouse. Open door requested.
He hadn't asked me if I wanted to go on a helicopter. He had told me three days later, over breakfast, like it was a surprise.
"I booked us something special," he said, pouring coffee. "You've been stressed. Thought we could get out over the water, just us. My guy has a bird with an open door. You'll love it."
He watched my face too closely when he said it. His hand was steady around the mug, but his thumb tapped once, twice against the ceramic. He kept his eyes on my reaction. When I said, "That sounds nice," his shoulders dropped a quarter inch. Relief.
The next morning, I watched him pack. He laid his dark suit jacket over the back of the chair. White collared shirt, pressed. He checked his phone, checked the weather app, checked the charter confirmation again. He put his wallet, his keys, and a folded envelope into his jacket pocket. I saw the edge of legal paper inside.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Nothing. Work papers," he said, too fast. He zipped the pocket shut.
He moved around the bedroom like a man rehearsing. He kept returning to the window, looking out at the driveway, then back at me. When I reached for my trench coat, he stepped forward and held it for me, his hand lingering on my wrist a second too long. The same grip I would feel in the air.
May you like
"Move closer," he would say later over the wind. But in that bedroom, he didn't need to say it. His fingers already told me what he was practicing for.
I nodded and let him help me into the coat. I kept my hand on my belly. And I thought about the trust Diane had described, the $4.2 million that would become his the second my heart stopped, if the old papers still stood. He believed they did. Everything becomes mine, he would say in the helicopter, because on his spreadsheet, it already was.
