Married to my suspect

DANIELLE'S POV

I paced across the room, trying not to cry. I'd mustered the courage to finally ask about the pen but had gotten nothing. Had all this, getting married, been just a stupid goose chase. I palmed my head, I'd never in my life ever felt as foolish as I did right now. What exactly had I been expecting anyway? Jonathan was just a year older than I was so it was practically impossible that someone that young would know what was behind the pen. I groaned into my palms and almost jumped out of my skin when the door opened.

I turned to Jonathan, who had on an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry for scaring you. I have an appointment with someone right now, and I need to go."

I looked at my watchless hand and gaped at him. "Now?" My eyes went to the clock. "It's almost eleven pm."

He nodded. "Yeah. It kinda just came up. I'll most likely not come back until dawn, but I still want us to go to work tomorrow."

I frowned. "Did something happen with the merger? Or was it your attempt to privatize your company?" Even for a CEO, going out at this time of the night with no prior knowledge was every kind of strange.

Jonathan shook his head, but I could see the strain he was trying to hide, just like his reaction when I'd been prying in his office earlier, except, he wasn't putting much effort in hiding it now. "Nothing to be worried about. Goodnight." He said and closed the door quietly, leaving me just staring at the door.

Perhaps it was good that I'd struggled and not gotten to that position. While others were sleeping, a CEO was going out of his comfortable home to go for an appointment. What was the point in being the boss if you couldn't cancel events that weren't comfortable. I gave a self-deprecating laugh. I wasn't a CEO either, and neither was I in my bed.

I sat down at my vanity and looked at myself in the mirror for a few seconds. I'd been obsessed with finding the man that had killed my father since I was five. Was it just going to go to dust like this? I couldn't let that happen.

I brought out my mostly dormant laptop and did something I'd promised myself not to do after realizing how much Jonathan was beginning to mean to me. I typed ETHAN into the search engine. "I'm sorry, but I have no other choice now." I whispered and started scouring for all I could find on Ethan.

I scrolled through pages and pages before hissing and adding Carter to the back of his name. Since Jonathan had been adopted by his Ethan's parents, he would have taken their name, right? He didn't, as shown by the search results. I tried different combinations with Jonathan's name, with the name of the company, I'd even used suicide after his name, yet, nothing came out. I sighed deeply, even I knew what this meant. Somebody had taken great pain to make sure the name ETHAN disappeared from the internet.

I squared my shoulders. Apparently, that person hadn't meant me. What I had lacked in talking in social settings before getting married, I'd made up in getting to know people on the internet with my investigative skills. How else was I supposed to get revenge for my dad?

Of course, there was nothing that could be hidden completely from the internet. Two hours later, I shut down the system and laid down on the bed with a smile on my face. What I'd found wasn't a lot, but it was enough. I needed to talk to Jonathan when he came back. Only him could solve the mystery that I'd found. Hopefully, this time around, he would tell me the truth. I briefly considered telling him my own truth as well, since I wanted honesty from him, but I slept off before I could make up my mind.

(She found an old article that was posted sometime after Ethan's death of someone saying they knew his noseyness would one day put him in trouble. The article had angry messages for Jonathan too, since Ethan was the one that was loved.)

JONATHAN'S POV

I gripped the steering wheel with clammy hands, dreading the task ahead. I took a deep breath and removed my tie, massaging my neck that was beginning to close up. I started the car again for the tenth time in forty-five minutes, and the light in the security building came on.

I was still considering just driving out of the garage when a rap sounded on my window. I looked up to see an old man holding a pepper spray. I bowed my head in apology and made to reverse, but he motioned for me to wind down my window. I did so and turned on the inner light, hoping the pepper spray that was completely directed at me wouldn't be sprayed.

"I'm so sorry." I apologized as the windows rode downward, and the man looked into the car with an irritated expression before concluding I was harmless, probably, since the spray was no longer directed at me.

"Are you here to see a married woman, but the thought of her husband keeps driving you away?" He asked and laughed like he had said something amazingly funny. When I didn't laugh with him, his laughter died and he cleared his throat.

"Do you not have a watch? What are you doing here, disturbing the peace of this innocent apartment?" He looked at me closely. "I don't know you, but you look really familiar. Have we met before?" He asked, looking perplexed.

"I'll come back." I didn't mention the fact that I was parked in the apartment's garage, and so there was no way I could be disturbing any peace. I started winding the window up the car again, and he rapped on the door.

"Since you're here, why don't you do what you want to do. Maybe, she might decide to leave her husband for you." He said with a wink and left. I shook my head, so much for security, and turned off the car engine. I stayed in the car for twenty more minutes before gathering the courage to come down and lock the car.

The security man whistled from his seat, where he had made no effort to hide that he had been watching me. I got closer to him and he saluted. I nodded back, and that was when I noticed the much younger and buff man that had been in the shadows and had been pointing a rifle directly at me. I barely managed not to raise my hands. Okay, he could keep his job.

I got into the elevator and scratched my jaw as I watched the numbers increase with each floor it got to. Finally, it reached the twenty-first floor and the door opened. I took the first step outside and took a deep breath, then took the remaining steps to the door of the penthouse. I punched in the code and the door opened. The light came on automatically and I saw Ethan's dead body lying just beside his couch, as if he had tried to run. I closed my eyes and the image disappeared. Instead of the clean apartment it would have been, courtesy of his housekeeper, it was dusty and smelled stale. And instead of seeing my brother and apologizing like I'd fully intended to do, a prepared speech on my lip, all I could see was the signs that indeed, Ethan was no longer alive. I crumpled into the seat in front of me, the very one that his lifeless body had laid against, and the door closed behind me with seemingly a loud bang.