Chapter 5: The First Husband
His name was Robert Hale.
Jasmine found him the same way Marcus had told her to find Gary — through a phone number written on that folded piece of paper.
Two names, two numbers, same handwriting.
Marcus had prepared this before he'd even sat down at that table.
He'd been waiting for a reason to move.
She called Robert the next morning from her car, parked two streets away from the house.
He answered immediately, as if he'd been expecting her.
"You're David's daughter," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"She's already started, hasn't she?" He said it quietly, without satisfaction.
"What did she ask for?"
"Three thousand dollars.
For rent."
A short sound — not quite a laugh.
"With me it was five.
For repairs to the kitchen.
Said the contractor needed a deposit." He paused.
"There was no contractor.
There was never going to be a contractor."
Jasmine gripped the steering wheel.
"How long were you married?"
"Three years.
She came in warm.
Patient.
I thought she genuinely loved me." His voice was flat now, describing something he'd examined so many times it had lost its texture.
"Then small things started moving.
Money I'd set aside.
An account I hadn't checked in a while.
By the time I understood what was happening, she had documentation that made it look like I'd been the one mismanaging everything.
Said I was unstable.
Said she was frightened."
"Did anyone believe her?"
"My own brother believed her.
For about eight months." He stopped.
"She has a way of getting there first.
Of setting the frame before you know there's a frame to set.
And she keeps records — not honest records, shaped ones.
Written to look like she was always the reasonable one, always the concerned one, always the one trying to hold things together."
Jasmine thought about her father asleep upstairs while Jessica stood in the kitchen manufacturing a confrontation.
"She wanted your house," Jasmine said.
"She got half of it," Robert said.
"I signed things I shouldn't have signed.
I was exhausted and I didn't have anyone in my corner and I just wanted it to be over." A long pause.
"Don't let your father get exhausted.
That's when she moves."
"Would you be willing to tell my father what you told me?"
Silence.
"I'll think about it," he said finally.
"But not yet.
She finds out I've been talking and she'll use what she has on Marcus.
He told you about that, I assume."
"He told me."
"She collects leverage the way other people collect savings.
Always something in reserve.
Always someone she can point at if she needs to redirect the damage." His voice shifted slightly.
"Your mother — David's first wife.
Did she know Jessica before?"
Jasmine went still.
"No.
My mother passed when I was eleven.
Dad met Jessica years later."
"I'm sorry." He sounded like he meant it.
"I only asked because Jessica mentioned a first wife once.
Offhand.
Said she knew things about the family that David didn't know she knew." He paused.
"I always thought that was strange.
But I didn't know what to do with it."
Jasmine sat in her parked car long after the call ended.
The street outside was ordinary.
A neighbor walking a dog.
A delivery truck making a slow turn at the corner.
She kept thinking about one sentence.
*She knew things about the family that David didn't know she knew.*
What things?
How long had Jessica been watching this family before she ever walked through the front door?
Jasmine called Marcus.
He picked up on the first ring.
"I talked to Robert," she said.
"And?"
"Marcus, how did Jessica meet my dad?
Do you actually know?"
A silence that lasted three full seconds.
"I always assumed they met through work," he said.
"Why?"
"Robert said she mentioned our family.
Before she and Dad got together.
Said she knew things."
Another silence.
Longer.
"Jasmine." His voice had changed.
Lower now.
"Your mother's life insurance.
Do you know how much it was?"
She hadn't thought about that in years.
"No," she said.
"Dad never talked about it."
"I need to make a call," Marcus said.
"Stay home tonight.
Don't let her see that anything has changed."
May you like
The line went quiet.
Jasmine drove back toward the house, her hands steady on the wheel, her mind running very fast through a very cold landscape.
