Chapter 7: What Chloe Knew
We met at a coffee shop twelve blocks from Patricia's office.
Neutral ground.
Chloe had chosen it.
She was already there when I arrived, seated at a corner table with a coffee she hadn't touched.
She was younger than I had imagined — late twenties, dark circles under her eyes, the particular exhaustion of a new mother who hadn't slept more than three hours at a stretch in weeks.
A baby carrier sat on the chair beside her, and inside it, a small sleeping face.
I sat down across from her.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
"She looks like him," I said finally, because it was true and because pretending otherwise seemed pointless.
Chloe looked at her daughter.
"I know."
A server came.
I ordered coffee.
We waited until she left.
"Rachel said you have something to tell me," I said.
Chloe wrapped both hands around her cup.
"Two weeks before your baptism party, Daniel came to see me.
He was agitated.
He said you had been asking questions about the finances.
He said he needed to move some things around before you noticed."
I kept my face still.
"He asked me to hold money for him," she said.
"In my account.
Temporarily, he said.
Until things settled down after the party."
"How much?"
"He transferred eight thousand dollars into my account on a Thursday.
He said it was from his personal savings.
He said it was just a precaution." She looked up at me.
"I didn't ask where it came from.
I should have.
I know that now."
Eight thousand dollars.
Not in the records I had photographed.
A transfer I hadn't found.
"When did he plan to move it back?" I asked.
"He didn't say.
He said he'd let me know." She paused.
"After Rachel told me what happened at the party, I went through my account.
The eight thousand is still there.
It came in from a joint account." She slid a piece of paper across the table.
"I printed the deposit record."
I looked at it.
The account number on the transfer was the one Daniel and I had opened together the year we bought the house.
Not the baby account.
The older one.
The one with more in it.
"He was hiding money from the divorce," I said.
"I think so," Chloe said.
"I didn't know it was a joint account.
I didn't know any of it was yours." Her voice was steady but her hands weren't.
"He told me your marriage had been over for two years.
He told me you were practically separated.
He told me you were seeing someone else."
"I wasn't."
"I know that now."
I looked at the deposit record again.
Patricia was going to want this.
"Chloe," I said.
"This document — are you willing to give a copy to my attorney?"
She nodded.
"That's why I printed it."
"It may mean you have to answer questions about the money.
About your arrangement with Daniel."
"I know." She looked at her daughter.
"She's three weeks old.
I have no job right now, no income, and the man who told me he would take care of everything has been lying to me since before she was born." She looked back at me.
"I'm not protecting him."
I folded the paper and put it in my bag.
"He told me her name was Lily," I said.
"Your daughter."
Chloe's expression shifted.
"He chose it.
I thought he just liked the name."
"My daughter's name is Lily," I said.
She stared at me.
"He was at her baptism on Saturday," I said.
"Accepting compliments.
Shaking hands.
Standing in front of his coworkers and his parents and telling everyone he was a devoted father."
Chloe set down her cup.
Her jaw tightened.
"He called me from the parking lot that night," she said slowly.
"He told me the party had gotten complicated.
He said you had caused a scene.
He said you were unstable."
"And now?"
She looked at me for a long moment.
"Now I think I've been in a car with the wrong person this whole time."
We sat there in the coffee shop while the morning moved around us.
A couple at the next table argued quietly over a menu.
A child near the window pressed her face against the glass.
Chloe's daughter stirred in the carrier.
A small sound, then quiet again.
"What are you going to do?" I asked her.
"Call my sister," she said.
"Move in with her for a while.
Figure out what I'm actually owed versus what Daniel promised me." She paused.
"And stop answering his calls."
I nodded.
I picked up my bag.
Then I stopped.
"One more thing," I said.
"Daniel sent you a text on Saturday night from the banquet room.
Before he came out to the parking lot.
What did it say?"
Chloe reached for her phone.
She found the message and turned the screen toward me.
*Something came up.
Might be a few more minutes.
Don't text me again tonight.*
Sent at 9:44 PM.
Three minutes before he tried to transfer $4,200 out of our joint account.
He had been managing two women and an asset transfer from the same chair at the same table, in the same three-minute window.
I took a photo of her screen.
"Thank you," I said.
"Jennifer." She said my name like she was testing how it felt.
"I'm sorry.
I know that's not enough."
"No," I said.
"But it's something."
I walked out into the gray morning and called Patricia from the sidewalk.
"I have the deposit record," I said.
"Eight thousand dollars.
Hidden in Chloe's account.
And a timestamp that puts the attempted transfer and the text to Chloe in the same three-minute window on Saturday night."
A pause.
"Where are you?" Patricia asked.
"Twelve blocks from your office."
"Come back," she said.
May you like
"His attorney is asking for a meeting this afternoon.
I want you here when I respond."
