They spent a few months in a small town in Oregon. It was the happiest Ellie had ever been. They lived in a modest apartment, and for the first time, she felt like a person, not a possession. They even got married in a quiet courthouse ceremony.
But the shadow of Arthur Sterling was long. One afternoon, Ellie didn’t come home from the grocery store. Caleb waited for hours, his heart sinking. Then, his phone rang.
— “Caleb? It’s me,” Ellie’s voice was shaking, hysterical. “I’m not coming back. I realized I can’t live like this. I miss the money. I miss my life. I’m going back to Arthur.”
— “Ellie, what are you talking about? We’re happy here!”
— “Don’t look for me. It’s over.”
Caleb went back to the city, desperate to find her. He pounded on the gates of the Sterling estate, but he was met by security guards who beat him until he was unconscious. When he woke up in the hospital, Ellie was there, looking cold and distant.
— “Go away, Caleb. I chose this. I want the millions, not a one-bedroom apartment. Forget I ever existed.”
He left the city a broken man. A year later, he got a call from a coroner. Ellie had died in a car accident on a rain-slicked highway. She had been alone. Arthur Sterling had declined to claim the body, citing their “estrangement.”
