Chapter 8 - The Sabotage Unraveled
For two months, the silence was absolute.
Vivian had been served the protective order at the regional headquarters of Starlight Retail on a Tuesday morning at 11:15 AM. According to a former colleague of hers who happened to be friends with Lauren, the deputy had walked right into the middle of a divisional logistics briefing, asked for Vivian Voss by name, and handed her the red-jacketed summons in front of twenty-eight subordinate managers.
Two days later, Starlight’s corporate HR department placed Vivian on mandatory administrative leave pending an internal investigation into the corporate espionage allegations forwarded by Apex’s legal team.
The immediate threat appeared neutralized. Walter had moved into a luxury high-rise condominium in downtown Austin and had formally served Estelle with divorce papers. Estelle, completely stripped of her social leverage, had fled to her sister’s home in Scottsdale, leaving Vivian completely isolated in her West Lake Hills fortress.
Daniel and I threw ourselves into wedding planning with a fierce, joyful urgency.
We scrapped the massive, performative two-hundred-person gala at the country club that Estelle had spent six months trying to micromanage. Instead, we booked an intimate private vineyard in the hill country outside Fredericksburg—The Wildflower Estate. Sixty guests. Just our closest friends, my extended family from Ohio, and Walter.
It was three weeks before the wedding when the cracks began to show.
I was sitting in my office at Apex on a Thursday afternoon when my cell phone chimed with an email notification from *Amethyst Event Planning*, the boutique agency we had hired to handle the floral arrangements and catering logistics.
The subject line read: *Confirmation of Cancellation - Voss/Miller Nuptials.*
My coffee cup froze halfway to my mouth.
I clicked the link. The email contained a PDF receipt confirming that our twenty-thousand-dollar catering and floral package had been formally canceled, our non-refundable deposit forfeited, and the date released back into the venue’s open calendar.
My hands began to tremble. I dialed the planner, Sarah Lin, immediately.
“Sarah! It’s Clara. What is this cancellation email?”
“Clara?” Sarah sounded thoroughly bewildered on the other end of the line. “You called this morning! You said you and Daniel had decided to elope to Cabo and that you needed the contract dissolved immediately to recoup whatever funds you could!”
“I didn't call you!” I shouted, standing up from my desk so fast my swivel chair slammed against the wall. “I’ve been in client meetings since eight-thirty this morning!”
“Clara, the caller had your account password,” Sarah said, her voice rising in panic. “She confirmed the last four digits of the credit card on file, answered the security question regarding your mother’s maiden name, and sent a confirmation email from your personal Gmail account!”
I closed my eyes. The blood thudded in my ears like a war drum.
May you like
My personal Gmail.
Three years ago, when Daniel and I first moved in together, we had set up a shared iPad that sat on our kitchen counter to control the smart home lights, the Sonos sound system, and the grocery lists
