Chapter 7: What Grace Found in Three Days
Grace Whitfield's office smelled like coffee and old paper and something that felt, strangely, like competence.
She was in her early sixties, with short silver hair and reading glasses she took on and off without looking for them.
She read the property document Renee had given me, then the screenshot of Marcus's text, then a printed copy of fourteen years of the $87 storage charge I had pulled from our joint account records.
She read everything without speaking.
Then she set her glasses on the desk.
"He told you the house was an investment," she said.
"Yes."
"And he told her—" she glanced at her notes, "—Renee, that it was being held for the child."
"Yes."
"And it's in your name and his name jointly."
"Yes."
Grace tapped the document once with one finger.
"He can't touch it without you.
Which means at some point he was planning to either tell you about it or find another way around your signature." She looked at me steadily.
"Neither of those options reflects well on him."
"No."
"The third account." She leaned back slightly.
"My colleague ran a preliminary search this morning.
There is an account in his name only, opened nineteen years ago.
Before your marriage."
"He mentioned that.
He said he kept it separate because he needed something that was only his."
"There have been regular transfers out of that account for the past eight years.
Consistent amounts, monthly.
To a second account we haven't fully traced yet." She paused.
"We will."
I looked at the window behind her.
The street outside was ordinary.
People walking.
A delivery van.
"How much?" I said.
"The transfers average around four thousand dollars a month."
I turned back to her.
"For eight years."
"Yes."
I did the math.
I didn't say the number out loud.
Grace didn't either.
She just let it sit there between us.
"Is it going to Renee?" I said.
"We don't know yet.
It may be going to a third party entirely." She picked up her glasses again.
"I want to be direct with you, Olivia.
What we're looking at may go beyond the personal.
If he has been moving money through undisclosed accounts over a sustained period, that has legal implications that extend past divorce proceedings."
"You mean financial fraud."
"I mean it's possible.
I don't want to overstate it before we have the full picture." She set her glasses down again without putting them on.
"But I want you prepared."
"What do I do now?"
"You do nothing that changes any joint asset.
You don't move money, you don't sign anything, you don't agree to anything he proposes." She held my gaze.
"And if he contacts you again with anything that sounds like an offer or a warning, you forward it to me immediately."
"He texted me last night.
I sent it to you."
"I read it." She folded her hands on the desk.
"That text is the most useful thing he's given us so far.
*I have things in that house you don't know about.* That is a man who is afraid of what we'll find."
She stood and extended her hand.
"I'll call you in three days," she said.
"By then I'll know more."
She called in two.
"We found the second account," Grace said.
"It's not going to Renee."
"Then who?"
A pause.
"It's registered to a company.
A small LLC, incorporated six years ago.
The sole director is listed as a man named Thomas Vail." She paused again.
"Does that name mean anything to you?"
May you like
I sat down slowly on the edge of the bed.
"That's Marcus's brother," I said.
