Chapter 5 - The Women Before Me
The federal liaison asked whether Gregory had been married before.
“He said no.”
The officer placed a photograph on the table.
A woman with auburn hair stood beside Gregory at a charity event four years earlier.
Her name was Rebecca Sloan.
She disappeared during a vacation in the Caribbean eighteen months later.
Gregory told investigators she ended their relationship and traveled alone.
Her body was never found.
No charges were filed.
Then came another woman.
Danielle Price.
She dated Gregory briefly and reported that he pressured her to sign financial documents. She withdrew her complaint after receiving a settlement through a company connected to Gregory’s father.
A third woman, Maria Keller, had obtained a protective order after Gregory threatened her with a golf club.
The order was dismissed when she moved out of state and declined to testify.
I stared at the photographs.
Gregory had not hidden a single violent impulse for one year.
He had performed an entire personality.
The liaison continued.
Gregory’s father, Martin Hartman, owned a private risk-consulting company. Officially, it helped wealthy clients manage travel, security, and international asset structures.
Unofficially, the company had been linked to fraudulent passports, hidden accounts, and identity packages used by people fleeing debt or investigation.
The passport in Gregory’s suitcase was manufactured through that network.
So was mine.
“Why was security watching him?” I asked.
“One of the document numbers triggered during embarkation. The vessel was instructed not to alert the passenger until authorities confirmed the match.”
The bat complicated their surveillance.
The acoustic alert forced security to intervene before the planned investigation could continue quietly.
Gregory had carried the weapon aboard inside a custom suitcase lining that obscured the metal during the first inspection. A crew member later noticed inconsistent weight records and reported it.
His plan had started unraveling before the ship left Florida.
He just did not know it.
Then investigators found a hidden folder on Gregory’s satellite phone.
It contained photographs of me sleeping.
Copies of my driver’s license.
My fingerprints lifted from a drinking glass.
Medical information.
Routes between my office and apartment.
And scripts.
Statements Gregory had prepared in my voice using audio fragments from our calls.
One recording said:
I need time away. Don’t look for me.
Another:
The marriage was a mistake.
He intended to create proof that I abandoned him willingly.
The false identity would allow him to move me somewhere no one searched under my real name.
Whether he planned to keep me alive long enough to sign documents remained unclear.
But the pattern of violence suggested obedience was not enough.
Gregory needed disappearance.
Security allowed me to see him only through reinforced glass later that evening.
His charm had returned.
He smiled gently.
“Ashlynn, this has gotten out of control.”
May you like
I looked at the man who packed my replacement identity beside a baseball bat.
“No. You just lost control of it.”
