The first was to a lawyer. I explained, quickly, what I’d discovered. She was quiet, then very focused. “Meredith, if he faked his death to collect life insurance, that’s fraud — serious fraud, likely federal if it crossed state lines or involved the mail, which insurance almost always does. You are the beneficiary, which makes you a potential unwitting participant. The single most important thing you can do, right now, for your own protection, is report it immediately, before that claim pays out, so the record shows you exposed it the moment you knew.”
“I’m at his wedding right now,” I said. “He’s about to marry someone else. Alive.”
“Then you,” she said, “are about to have the best-documented fraud case an insurance investigator has ever received. Take everything. Then call them.”
The second call was to the insurance company’s fraud department.
“I need to report that a policyholder you have listed as deceased,” I said, “is currently alive and getting married. I’m the beneficiary. I did not know he was alive until twenty minutes ago. I have photographs. I have the venue. I have him in a tuxedo. And I would like it on the record that I am reporting this the moment I discovered it.”
The fraud investigator’s tone changed the way people’s tones change when you hand them the case of their career.
“Ms.—”
“Meredith. The fiancée he faked his death on. Yes. I grieved at the funeral. No, I didn’t know. Yes, I’ll give a full statement. And yes — he’s about to say ‘I do’ to another woman while a claim with my name on it sits open on your desk. You may want to hurry.”
I hung up.
Then I went back inside, and I finished the flowers, and I watched Adrian Parker prepare to marry a stranger, and I felt, for the first time in three months, completely calm.
