Chapter 5: What Cara Knew
I called Patricia before I called Cara back.
"She reached out to you?" Patricia said.
"Voicemail.
This morning."
"Don't call her yet.
Let me find out what we're dealing with first." A pause.
"Actually — wait.
Did she sound hostile?"
"No.
She sounded like she was reading from something she'd written down."
"Nervous."
"Maybe.
Or careful."
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"Call her back.
Put it on speaker and record it.
Send me the recording immediately after.
Don't ask leading questions.
Just let her talk."
I sat at the kitchen table.
My mother was in the next room with the babies.
I could hear the low sound of her humming to them.
I pressed call.
Cara answered on the second ring.
"Thank you for calling me back," she said.
"What do you want to tell me?"
A short pause.
"I've been seeing Eric for about eight months.
I want you to know that I didn't know he was married at first.
He told me he was separated.
That you had been living apart for over a year."
"We weren't."
"I know that now." Her voice was steady but I could hear something underneath it.
"I found out three weeks ago.
I found a photo on his phone.
You were pregnant.
Very pregnant.
He told me the woman in the photo was his sister-in-law."
I didn't say anything.
"I confronted him," Cara continued.
"He said it was complicated.
That you had trapped him with the pregnancy.
That you were unstable and he had been trying to find a way out for years."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"I ended it that night," she said.
"But then he showed up at my door yesterday.
He said you had ambushed him with divorce papers and that you were trying to take everything.
He asked if he could stay."
"And you let him."
"I told him he could stay one night while he figured out somewhere to go.
I'm not — I'm not on his side.
I want you to understand that.
I'm calling you because I think you deserve to know what he said about you.
And because I have things.
Texts.
Emails.
Things he said about the money."
I sat very still.
"What things about the money?"
"He told me he was building a fund.
His word — fund.
He said that when the time was right, he was going to leave and he'd have enough to start over without losing half to you in a settlement." She stopped.
"He called it his exit plan."
The humming from the next room continued.
One of the babies made a small sound and then went quiet.
"Will you put that in writing?" I said.
"A statement.
For my attorney."
A long pause.
"Yes," Cara said.
"I'll do that.
I should have called you sooner.
I'm sorry I didn't."
I ended the call and sat there for a moment.
Then I picked up the phone and called Patricia.
"Did you get it?" I said.
"Playing it now." A pause.
"Olivia."
"I know."
"This changes the financial picture significantly.
If we can show intent to defraud — that he was systematically removing assets in anticipation of divorce — that's not just a disclosure violation.
That's dissipation of marital assets.
Judges take that seriously."
"How seriously?"
"Seriously enough that his exit plan may end up funding yours instead."
I exhaled slowly.
"There's one more thing," Patricia said.
"I pulled the account records this morning.
The money didn't just sit there.
He was moving it again.
Smaller transfers.
Into a second account."
"A second account."
"Under a different name.
A business name.
We're still tracing it."
I looked at the wall across from me.
A drawing my sister had taped up the day before — three little stick figures in a row, labeled with the babies' names in her handwriting.
She'd put a star above each one.
Eric had been planning this since before they were born.
"Find the second account," I said.
"We will," Patricia said.
"And Olivia — don't let him back in the house.
Not for any reason."
I was about to say I wouldn't.
Then my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
*We need to talk.
In person.
Tonight.
I know about the second account too.
— C*
It wasn't Cara's number.
It was different.
May you like
I stared at the message.
Someone else knew.
