Lies that Bind by Ashley Farley

Author:Ashley Farley [Farley, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leisure Time Books
Published: 2020-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

Maggie makes the six-hour drive in five and a half, stopping once at a Wawa near Pittsburgh for gas and lunch—a protein bar and cup of black coffee. Although she arrives in DC in the thick of rush hour traffic, she finds a parking place on the street near Trey’s downtown office. Positioning herself at the main entrance of the building, she calls the law office and asks to speak to him.

The operator says “Mr. McDaniel is in a meeting at the moment. May I take a message and have him return your call?”

“I’ll try back later,” Maggie says and hangs up. Trey is still in the building, which means he’ll have to emerge at some point. She’s prepared to wait all night if necessary.

She’s no sooner ended the call when another one comes in from Chief Marshall.

“Brace yourself, Maggie. I have some disturbing news.”

Maggie takes a deep breath. “Go ahead.”

“Your husband’s real name is Robert Charles Wheeler, originally from Salt Lake City, Utah. Father unknown. Mother abandoned him as a young child. He grew up in the foster care system. He graduated from high school but never went to college.”

Her knees go weak, and she falls back against the building’s windowed exterior. “Go on.”

“In November of 2014, Robert Wheeler married Kara Chapman, a young woman from a wealthy family in Phoenix, Arizona. Kara fell to her death from the balcony of their tenth-floor apartment in April of 2016. Her family claims Robert abused her, and accused him of pushing her, but there was not enough evidence to bring charges against him.”

Heart hammering against rib cage, she chokes out, “Did he inherit money from her?”

“Quite a lot of it, as a matter of fact.”

Maggie slides down the glass façade to her bottom. “Then who is Eric Jones?”

“We found several Eric Joneses born in 1986 in Topeka, Kansas. Eric was a popular name that year. We’re only concerned with two of them. One bears a striking resemblance to your husband. Parents both dead. Graduated from Seaman High School and Kansas State University.”

“Right. He’s the one I investigated.”

“And the one your husband wants you to believe he is. The social security number your husband is using belongs to the identity of the second Eric Jones who died in a motorcycle accident in February of 2016.”

Maggie runs her fingers through her hair. “I don’t understand how this can be true,” she says, although she doesn’t doubt that it is. “I mean . . . I don’t even know what I mean.”

“I understand. It’ll take some time for all that information to sink in. Don’t beat yourself up about this, Maggie. Robert was very thorough in his cover-up.”

“I should’ve dug deeper.”

“Not necessarily. At the time, you had no reason to suspect he was lying.”

While that’s true, it doesn’t make her feel any better. “Maybe.”

“I'm under obligation to contact the police in Richmond regarding this matter. But they’re gonna need to talk to you. Are you okay with that?”

Silence fills the line. She needs time to think the situation through before deciding how to proceed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.