Chapter 6: Perfect Pitch
One year later.
The afternoon ocean breeze felt crisp and wonderfully cool against my skin. I stood on the sprawling, sun-drenched wooden balcony of my new beachfront home in Malibu—a property I had purchased entirely outright using the massive settlement money that was originally meant to fund Logan’s infidelity and his mother’s greed.
I was wearing a flowing white linen dress, holding a glass of expensive, chilled Sauvignon Blanc.
I closed my eyes and simply listened. I listened to the rhythmic, powerful crash of the waves against the shore below. I listened to the distant, piercing call of the seagulls circling overhead. I listened to the soft, smooth notes of a jazz saxophone playing from the high-end surround sound speakers I had installed inside the house.
Every single sound was sharp, distinct, and incredibly beautiful. I had learned never to take a single decibel for granted again.
The trial had been swift and merciless. My audio recordings, combined with the digital trail of the offshore accounts Pamela had foolishly tried to hide, provided an airtight case for the prosecution.
Logan and Pamela were both found guilty on multiple felony counts of wire fraud, conspiracy, and embezzlement. The judge, entirely unsympathetic to their tearful pleas for leniency, had sentenced them both to eight years in federal prison.
I had received a letter from Pamela just last week, mailed from a minimum-security women’s facility in upstate New York. It was a rambling, pathetic, ten-page apology, blaming her actions on a “temporary lapse in judgment” and begging me to put some money into her commissary account because the prison food was “ruining her digestion.”
I hadn’t even bothered to read the whole thing. I had taken the envelope, walked into my home office, and fed it directly into the heavy-duty paper shredder.
