Chapter 4 - The Honeymoon Package Gregory Designed
Security moved us into separate rooms.
A female officer remained with me while another team preserved the suite.
I gave my statement still wearing the white dress I had chosen for our first day as newlyweds.
Rose petals clung to the hem.
A red mark spread across my wrist where Gregory had grabbed me before swinging the bat.
The officer asked whether he had ever threatened me before.
“No.”
Controlled me?
Not openly.
Monitored my location?
I hesitated.
Gregory always knew when I left work.
He called if I stopped somewhere unexpectedly.
He said it was attentiveness.
Had he encouraged me to change insurance or estate documents?
Three weeks before the wedding, Gregory persuaded me to update my beneficiary forms. He said marriage meant building one future.
He also encouraged me to sign a medical authorization naming him as the person allowed to make decisions if I became incapacitated.
The officer wrote everything down.
Then she asked:
“Who arranged the honeymoon?”
“Gregory.”
“All reservations?”
“Yes.”
“Flights, cruise, ground transportation?”
“Yes.”
“Did he insist you travel under your married name?”
I looked at her.
“My legal name change isn’t complete.”
“But the reservation was made as Ashlynn Hartman?”
“Yes.”
She left the room for several minutes.
When she returned, a man in a dark suit accompanied her. He identified himself only as a federal liaison assigned to maritime financial crimes.
He placed several blurred documents on the table.
The booking records showed our original itinerary did not end in Miami.
After the cruise, Gregory had reserved private transportation from the terminal to a small regional airport.
Two tickets continued to an island nation without automatic extradition arrangements for certain financial offenses.
One ticket was under Gregory’s false identity.
The other used the passport carrying my photograph.
“You believe he was taking me there?”
“We’re determining that.”
“Why would he need another identity for me?”
The liaison’s answer was cautious.
“To make it appear Ashlynn Hartman never left the ship.”
My skin went cold.
The cruise line listed me under my married reservation.
If I vanished after disembarkation using another identity, records could show Ashlynn Hartman arriving in Miami while a different woman traveled onward.
Depending on what Gregory staged, he could claim I left him.
Disappeared voluntarily.
Or suffered an accident before the next trip.
The false identity separated my physical existence from my legal one.
Then the liaison showed me a beneficiary document.
Three days before the wedding, Gregory had attempted to purchase a large life-insurance policy on me through a private broker.
The application was incomplete.
My signature had not been verified.
But the intended beneficiary was Gregory.
The amount was five million dollars.
The honeymoon was not only a violent man revealing himself after marriage.
May you like
It was an operation.
And Gregory’s father had helped construct it.
