Hunting Down My Mysterious Doctor Wife

Eleanora sat in the last row of the classroom, her spine pressed hard against the rigid plastic of the chair.

The air in the Manhattan elite prep school felt heavy, thick with the scent of expensive cologne and entitlement.

She kept her head down. A thick layer of black gothic eyeshadow weighed down her eyelids, and dark, matte lipstick coated her mouth. The makeup felt like a physical mask, tight and suffocating against her skin.

At the front of the room, Mr. Mortimer Pinsky paced in front of the whiteboard.

Eleanora raised her hand. Her arm muscles tightened, holding the posture steady.

Pinsky's eyes swept over the back of the room. His gaze hit Eleanora, slid off her like water off oil, and landed on a blonde girl in the front row.

"Yes, Chloe?" Pinsky smiled, revealing coffee-stained teeth.

Eleanora lowered her arm. Her knuckles brushed the edge of her desk.

A crumpled ball of lined notebook paper flew from the left side of the room. It hit Eleanora's desk with a soft thud, rolling to a stop against her knuckles.

She didn't flinch. She didn't open it. She just stared at the jagged edges of the paper.

The shrill scream of the dismissal bell pierced the air.

Eleanora grabbed her frayed black canvas bag. She shoved her worn notebook inside, the metal spiral scraping against the fabric.

She pushed her chair back. The metal legs screeched against the linoleum floor.

She walked toward the back door.

Out in the hallway, the crowd of students parted. They stepped back, pressing their shoulders against the lockers as if she carried a contagious disease.

A group of boys leaning against a water fountain let out a sharp, mocking whistle.

Eleanora kept her face completely blank. She reached into the pocket of her oversized black hoodie. Her fingers found the familiar plastic wrapper of a strawberry lollipop.

She unwrapped it with one hand and popped it into her mouth. The artificial sweetness hit her tongue, a small, grounding sensation in the middle of the noise.

She pushed open the heavy, carved oak doors of the school.

The autumn air outside was sharp and cold. It bit into the exposed skin of her neck.

Inside her pocket, her cheap prepaid phone began to vibrate. It buzzed violently against her thigh.

She pulled it out. The cracked screen glowed with a caller ID: New York City Police Department.

Eleanora swiped the screen to answer. She lifted the phone to her ear. Her boots stopped moving on the concrete steps.

"Hello?" she said.

The officer on the other end spoke quickly. The words "Philip Sanders," "severe car crash," and "suburbs" pushed through the speaker.

Eleanora's jaw went slack.

The strawberry lollipop slipped from her mouth. It hit the concrete stairs and shattered into sticky red shards.

Her stomach dropped, a violent plunge that left her breathless. Her fingers clamped down on the plastic phone case so hard the edges dug into her palm.

She didn't hang up. She just started running.

Her heavy boots pounded against the pavement. Her lungs burned as she sprinted toward the nearest subway station.

She slammed her MetroCard against the turnstile scanner, pushed her hips through the metal bar, and threw herself into the waiting train car just as the doors slid shut.

The train lurched forward. Eleanora grabbed the overhead metal pole. Her knuckles turned stark white. Her chest heaved, pulling in shallow, desperate breaths.

Forty-five minutes later, she burst out of the suburban Long Island station.

A cold, stinging rain had started to fall. It soaked through her hoodie in seconds, chilling her to the bone.

She sprinted down the familiar tree-lined street.

Up ahead, two police cruisers sat parked in the driveway of the Sanders residence. Their red and blue lights flashed, reflecting off the wet asphalt.

Eleanora didn't slow down. She shoved the heavy front door open. It wasn't locked.

Inside the living room, the air was warm and smelled of vanilla candles.

Aleta Boyd, her adoptive mother, sat on the plush velvet sofa. Aleta held a white lace handkerchief to her face, her shoulders shaking in a rhythmic, practiced motion in front of two standing police officers.

Eleanora walked straight toward them. Her wet boots left dark mud tracks on the pristine white carpet.

"Where is he?" Eleanora demanded. Her voice was raw, scraping against her throat.

Aleta lowered the handkerchief. There were no tears in her eyes. Only a flash of pure, unfiltered disgust.

One of the officers stepped forward. He held out a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside was Philip's crushed watch and his blood-stained wallet.

"I'm sorry, miss," the officer said.

Eleanora stared at the blood. Her chest tightened, a physical band squeezing her ribs until she couldn't pull in air.

She looked up.

At the top of the grand wooden staircase stood Cornelia, her stepsister. Cornelia was leaning against the banister, the corner of her mouth pulled up in a distinct, chilling smirk.

The blood rushed out of Eleanora's head. A cold, heavy realization settled in her gut.

They knew. They had known before she even got the call, and they hadn't told her.

Eleanora turned her eyes back to Aleta. "You didn't even call me," she said, her voice dropping to a deadly, quiet register.

Aleta stood up, dropping the handkerchief onto the cushion. The mask of the grieving widow vanished.

"Get out," Aleta snapped, pointing a manicured finger toward the open front door. "Philip is gone. I am not feeding a useless freak for another day. Pack your trash and get out of my house."

Eleanora didn't argue. The muscles in her jaw locked.

She turned around. She walked to the entryway console table and grabbed her damp canvas bag.

She didn't look back. She walked out the door and stepped off the porch, right back into the freezing rain.

She walked down the driveway, the rain washing the black makeup down her cheeks in dark, muddy streaks.

A massive, all-black, bulletproof Cadillac SUV rolled silently down the street. It pulled up right next to her, the tires hissing against the wet road.

The driver's side door opened.

Devonte Merrill stepped out. He wore a tailored black suit. He opened a massive black golf umbrella and stepped forward, holding it directly over Eleanora's head, blocking out the rain.

Eleanora stood under the dry canopy. Her chest rose and fell.

Eleanora ducked her head and slid into the cavernous back seat of the Cadillac SUV.

Devonte collapsed the umbrella in one fluid motion, pulled the heavy door shut, and climbed into the driver's seat. He shifted the car into drive.

The interior of the SUV was dead silent. The thick bulletproof glass completely severed the sound of the pounding rain outside.

Eleanora dropped her soaked canvas bag onto the plush floor mats. She leaned her head back against the soft leather headrest and closed her eyes. Her breathing was shallow, her body shivering slightly from the damp cold.

Devonte glanced at her through the rearview mirror. His jaw tightened. He reached over to the passenger seat, grabbed a dry, folded cashmere towel, and passed it back to her.

Eleanora took it. The fabric was warm.

She pressed the towel against her face, dragging it roughly over her skin. The heavy black eyeliner and dark lipstick smeared onto the expensive cashmere, leaving dark, ugly stains.

When she lowered the towel and opened her eyes, the frightened, apathetic high school student was gone.

Her eyes were clear, sharp, and entirely devoid of warmth. Her pulse, which had been racing, slowed to a steady, calculated rhythm.

"Pull up the Sanders family corporate financial logs," Eleanora ordered. Her voice was steady, cutting through the quiet cabin.

Devonte didn't ask questions. He kept one hand on the steering wheel and used the other to tap the center console screen.

A hidden projector hummed to life. A glowing, encrypted financial spreadsheet appeared on the privacy screen dividing the front and back seats.

Eleanora leaned forward, her eyes scanning the scrolling lines of green data.

Her gaze locked onto a massive spike in the outgoing requests column.

"Stop," she said.

Devonte paused the screen.

Eleanora stared at a multi-million dollar life insurance claim filed directly by Aleta Boyd.

She checked the timestamp. The claim had been submitted exactly two hours after Philip's car crashed. Two hours before the police even called Eleanora.

A harsh, bitter laugh scraped its way out of Eleanora's throat.

Aleta hadn't called her because Aleta was too busy making sure the money was secured before the body was even cold.

"Cut them off," Eleanora said. Her fingers dug into the leather seat. "Sever every single shadow account. Terminate the shell company injections. Now."

Devonte nodded. He tapped his Bluetooth earpiece. "Aegis Financial. Execute protocol zero on the Sanders accounts. Full withdrawal."

Within three seconds, the green lines of data on the screen turned violently red. Three massive offshore accounts that had been secretly keeping the Sanders family business afloat instantly drained to zero.

The Cadillac merged onto the highway, speeding toward the glowing skyline of Manhattan.

Miles behind them, in the Sanders' living room, Aleta sat on the sofa with her iPad resting on her lap.

She tapped the screen, browsing the VIP section of a high-end jewelry retailer. She selected a fifty-thousand-dollar diamond tennis bracelet and hit the checkout button.

The screen loaded for a second. Then, a bright red error message popped up.

Transaction Denied.

Aleta frowned. She clicked her tongue in annoyance, assuming it was a glitch with the terrible estate Wi-Fi. She refreshed the page twice, watching the loading icon spin in agonizing slow motion. When the page finally reloaded, she clicked the checkout button again, only to see the same red text. She opened her digital wallet, selected her premium black card, and tried again.

Transaction Denied. Account Frozen.

Aleta's heart skipped a beat. A cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck.

She grabbed her phone and dialed the bank's VIP concierge line. Her fingers trembled slightly as she pressed the phone to her ear.

"This is Aleta Boyd," she snapped as soon as the line connected. "Why is my card declining?"

The customer service representative's voice was flat. "Mrs. Boyd, your primary corporate investors have executed a total withdrawal. Your accounts are overdrawn by four million dollars. All assets are currently frozen."

Aleta's hand went entirely numb. The phone slipped from her fingers, hitting the carpet with a dull thud.

Upstairs, Cornelia was standing in front of her mirror, holding a black designer dress against her body, completely oblivious to the fact that their world had just collapsed.

The Cadillac pulled into the private underground parking garage of a towering Manhattan skyscraper.

Eleanora stepped out of the car. Her boots clicked against the polished concrete.

She walked into the private elevator. Devonte swiped a black keycard, and the doors slid shut.

The elevator shot upward, stopping at the penthouse.

The doors opened to a massive, open-concept space surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. High-tech servers hummed softly in the background.

Eleanora walked straight to the main console desk.

"Show me the police photos from the crash site," she commanded.

Devonte typed on the keyboard. High-resolution images flashed onto the main monitor.

Eleanora leaned in close to the screen. She stared at the close-up photo of the tire marks on the wet asphalt.

Her eyes narrowed. The skid marks didn't curve. They were perfectly straight, accelerating right into the concrete barrier.

Her stomach tightened. Her blood ran cold.

It wasn't an accident.

The air inside the boardroom at the top of the Vaughan Group headquarters was freezing.

Twenty senior executives sat around the massive circular mahogany table. No one dared to breathe too loudly.

At the head of the table sat Fidel Vaughan.

He rested his elbows on the table, his long, pale fingers pressing brutally hard into his temples. His knuckles were white.

A blinding, white-hot pain pulsed behind his eyes, a physical weight crushing his skull. The chronic nerve damage felt like shattered glass grinding against his brain with every heartbeat.

A middle-aged executive stood at the projector, his voice shaking as he read the quarterly earnings report.

Fidel's jaw ticked. The man's voice sounded like a drill against his eardrums.

Fidel grabbed the heavy crystal water glass in front of him. He slammed it down onto the mahogany wood.

The glass shattered. Water and sharp shards exploded across the table.

The executives flinched in unison, pulling their hands back into their laps.

"You're fired," Fidel said. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp, barely above a whisper, but it carried to every corner of the room. "Get out."

The executive went pale. He didn't argue. He gathered his folders with trembling hands and practically ran out of the boardroom.

Julian Chamberlain, Fidel's executive assistant, stepped forward from the shadows behind Fidel's chair.

Julian pulled a sanitized wet wipe from a foil packet and handed it down.

Fidel took it. He wiped the moisture from his fingers, his face twisted in deep disgust at the feeling of the contaminated water on his skin.

Inside his tailored suit jacket, a private encrypted phone began to vibrate against his ribs.

Fidel pulled it out. The caller ID read: Cornelius Vaughan.

Fidel's stomach churned with irritation. He stood up, towering over the table, and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Wall Street.

He swiped to answer. "Grandfather."

"Have you found her yet?" Cornelius's voice barked through the speaker, old but full of iron authority. "The girl from the estate. The one who saved my life five years ago."

Fidel squeezed his eyes shut as another wave of agony ripped through his head. "I have people looking."

"Look harder," Cornelius demanded. "You owe her your life. I want her found, and I want the engagement announced before the end of the year. That is an order, Fidel."

Fidel's teeth ground together. He hated the idea of a forced marriage. He hated being tied down. But his grandfather held the final keys to the family trust.

"Fine," Fidel gritted out. He ended the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

He turned to Julian. "Go to Long Island. The Sanders house. See if the girl is there."

Julian nodded, his face impassive. "Right away, sir."

An hour later, a black Maybach with tinted windows rolled to a stop in front of the Sanders residence.

Julian stepped out. He adjusted his custom-tailored suit jacket and walked up the driveway. He pressed the doorbell.

Inside, Cornelia was screaming at Aleta because her credit card had just been declined online for a designer mourning veil.

Hearing the bell, Cornelia stomped to the front door and yanked it open, ready to yell at whoever was interrupting her tantrum.

The words died in her throat.

She stared at Julian. She took in the impeccable suit, the expensive watch on his wrist, and the gleaming Maybach parked at the curb.

Her posture instantly changed. She straightened her spine, smoothed her hair, and forced a sweet, polite smile onto her face.

"Can I help you?" Cornelia asked, her voice dropping an octave.

Julian studied her face for a second. He had only a heavily degraded security still from that night-a blurry profile of a girl covered in ash and soot. Cornelia matched the general height and build, but he needed to be certain.

"We have conflicting reports about the young woman's name at this residence," Julian probed smoothly, his eyes narrowing slightly as he observed her micro-expressions. "Could you clarify?"

Cornelia's heart slammed against her ribs.

She knew exactly what he was talking about. Eleanora had gone to that estate. Eleanora had come back with burn marks on her hands.

Cornelia's eyes darted to the gold pin on Julian's lapel-the Vaughan family crest.

Greed, hot and heavy, flooded her veins. Eleanora was gone. Kicked out. Nobody knew where she was.

Cornelia looked Julian right in the eye. "That would be me," she lied smoothly. "I'm the only daughter here. My name is Cornelia Sanders."

Julian analyzed her steady gaze and confident posture. The lie was seamless enough to pass his initial scrutiny. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a thick, gold-embossed envelope. He held it out to her.

"Miss Sanders," Julian said, his tone shifting to one of deep respect. "On behalf of the Vaughan family, I am here to formally invite you to meet with Mr. Fidel Vaughan. You are to be his future wife."

Cornelia's breath hitched. Her fingers shook as she reached out and took the envelope. The thick paper felt heavy in her hands.

"Thank you," she whispered, fighting to keep the manic grin off her face.

Julian bowed his head slightly, turned around, and walked back to the Maybach.

Cornelia stood in the doorway, clutching the envelope to her chest, watching the car drive away.