“I’ve been planning for this.”
“You’ve been planning for me to run away from my own wedding?”
“I’ve been planning for the possibility that David would try something,” she corrected. “I have a safe house. It’s under a shell corporation name—he can’t track it.”
I stared at my sister.
“How long have you been preparing for this?”
“Since the day I met him,” Sarah admitted. “Vic, from the moment I saw how he looked at you—or rather, how he looked around your apartment, cataloging your possessions—I knew something was wrong. I’ve been investigating him ever since.”
My phone buzzed.
A text from David: Where are you? Are you hurt? I showed it to Sarah.
She grabbed the phone and threw it out the window. “Hey!”
“He can track that,” she said. “Everything you have on you right now—your phone, your ring, that bracelet he gave you—all of it could have tracking devices.”
I looked down at the diamond ring on my finger—my engagement ring and the wedding band we’d exchanged just an hour ago.
The rings that symbolized a marriage that was already over. I pulled them off and handed them to Sarah. She tossed them out the window too.
We drove for forty minutes, winding through back roads until we reached a small cottage in Connecticut. It looked abandoned, but when Sarah unlocked the door, I found it fully furnished and stocked with supplies. “How long have you had this place?” I asked.
“Three months,” Sarah said. “Since you refused to listen to reason about David.”
I sank onto the couch, still wearing my ruined wedding dress. “You really thought it would come to this?”
“I hoped it wouldn’t,” Sarah said gently.
“I hoped I was wrong. But Vic, I couldn’t risk losing you.”
She handed me a laptop. “I’ve been documenting everything.
Every piece of evidence, every connection. It’s all here.”
I spent the next hour reading through Sarah’s investigation. It was even worse than I’d imagined.
David wasn’t just a serial killer who married wealthy women—he was part of a sophisticated operation. The fake identities, the forged documents, the network of accomplices who helped stage accidents. “Richard Blackwood, the owner of the Grand Conservatory,” Sarah explained, “he’s been involved in at least six suspicious deaths.
The venue provides the perfect setting—old building, lots of things that can go wrong. Tonight was supposed to be a fire, with you trapped inside. The sprinkler system was rigged with accelerant instead of water.”
“And the champagne?” I asked.
“Backup plan,” Sarah said. “If you managed to escape the fire, the allergic reaction would finish the job. Either way, David becomes a grieving widower who inherits your estate.”
“But we have a prenup,” I said.
“That you signed under fraudulent pretenses,” Sarah replied. “The lawyer who drafted it is part of David’s network. And there’s a clause that voids the prenup if you die within the first year of marriage—claiming it shows the marriage was valid and not just a financial arrangement.
It’s actually a clever legal trap.”
I felt sick. “How many women has he done this to?”
“That we can prove? Four.
But I think there are more. I found records suggesting he’s been operating under different identities for at least fifteen years.”
My phone—or rather, the burner phone Sarah handed me—buzzed. A news alert about a fire at the Grand Conservatory.
Multiple injuries, investigation ongoing. “The guests,” I said. “Are they okay?”
“Most got out safely,” Sarah said, scrolling through updates.
“A few injuries from the panic, smoke inhalation. But no deaths.”
“Thank God,” I breathed. “The police are looking for you,” Sarah added.
“They want to make sure you’re safe.”
“We should go to them,” I said. “Tell them everything.”
“We will,” Sarah said. “But not yet.
We need to be smart about this. David has resources, connections. If we go to the police now, with just my evidence, he’ll claim it’s a misunderstanding.
That you had cold feet and your sister convinced you to run.”
“So what do we do?”
“We get better evidence,” Sarah said. “I’ve been working with a private investigator—a former FBI agent who specializes in this kind of case. She’s been tracking David’s movements, his communications.
She has contacts in law enforcement who can help us build an airtight case.”
“How long will that take?”
“A few days. Maybe a week,” Sarah said. “Can you handle staying hidden that long?”
I looked down at my ruined wedding dress, thought about the four women who’d died because they’d trusted the wrong man, and nodded.
“I can handle it,” I said. “For as long as it takes.”
The Investigation
The private investigator Sarah had hired was named Margaret Chen. She arrived at the safe house the next morning—a sharp-eyed woman in her fifties with close-cropped gray hair and an air of competence that immediately put me at ease.
“Ms. Ashford,” she said, shaking my hand. “I’m glad you’re safe.
Your sister did the right thing getting you out of there.”
“Please, call me Victoria,” I said. “And thank you for helping us.”
Margaret opened her briefcase, pulling out files and photographs. “I’ve been investigating David Montgomery for the past two months.
What I’ve found is disturbing but also provides exactly what we need to put him away for good.”
She spread photographs across the table. “David’s real name is Daniel Morrison. He’s originally from Ohio—grew up in foster care after his parents died in a car accident when he was eight.
He was a smart kid, got a scholarship to college, studied business and psychology.”
“Psychology?” I asked. “Yes. He’s very good at reading people, understanding what they want to hear.
It’s how he’s been so successful at targeting vulnerable wealthy women.”
The word “vulnerable” stung, but I knew it was true. I’d been lonely, grieving my father, desperate for connection. “His first confirmed victim was Catherine Morrison, his college girlfriend,” Margaret continued.
“They married right after graduation. She came from old money—her family owned a pharmaceutical company. Six months after the wedding, she died in a hiking accident in Switzerland.
Daniel inherited everything.”
“And no one suspected him?” Sarah asked. “The Swiss police investigated, but Daniel had an alibi—he was at the hotel when she fell. He seemed genuinely devastated.
What they didn’t know was that Daniel had hired someone to push her. We tracked down the man he hired—he’s serving time for an unrelated crime and is willing to testify in exchange for a reduced sentence.”
My hands clenched. “He murdered her.”
“Yes,” Margaret said simply.
“And then he moved on to Lydia, Amanda, and Isabelle. Each time, the pattern was the same: whirlwind romance, quick marriage, convenient death, inheritance. He’d wait a few years between victims, change his appearance slightly, use a new identity.”
“How did he find them?” I asked.
“Charity events, social gatherings, dating apps for wealthy professionals,” Margaret explained. “He was methodical. He’d research potential targets, learn their vulnerabilities, craft the perfect persona to appeal to them.”
“And I was just another target,” I said bitterly.
“You were the biggest target,” Margaret corrected. “The Ashford Trust is worth more than all his previous victims’ estates combined. This was going to be his retirement score.”
She pulled out another file.
“But Daniel made mistakes this time. He got greedy and impatient. The wedding was too soon after you met.
The prenup was too obviously fraudulent. And he involved too many people—the forger, Richard Blackwood, the catering company owner. Each person is a potential weak link.”
“Have you talked to them?” Sarah asked.
“We have agents talking to them right now,” Margaret said. “The caterer is already cooperating—he’s terrified of going to prison. He’s provided detailed records of his communications with David, including instructions about the champagne.”
“And Blackwood?” I asked.
“Harder nut to crack,” Margaret admitted. “He’s been through this before. But we have evidence linking him to multiple suspicious fires at his venues over the years.
With the right pressure, he might flip.”
“What about David?” I asked. “Where is he now?”
Margaret’s expression darkened. “That’s the concerning part.
He disappeared from the Grand Conservatory during the chaos. We’ve been tracking his credit cards, phone records—nothing. He’s gone to ground.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“So he’s out there somewhere, looking for me.”
“Possibly,” Margaret said. “But he doesn’t know about this safe house. Your sister was very careful.
And we have the advantage—he thinks you don’t know about his past. He probably assumes you ran away because of the fire, not because you discovered his plan.”
“What’s the next step?” Sarah asked. “We build the case,” Margaret said.
“I have contacts in the FBI who are interested in this. David has crossed state lines multiple times to commit these crimes—that makes it federal. We’re putting together a task force.”
“How long before you can arrest him?” I asked.
“A few days,” Margaret said. “We want to make sure we have
