Chapter 3: What Claire Knew
Rebecca didn't make me wait.
"The second account was opened fourteen months ago," she said.
"The name on it is a woman named Sandra Whitmore."
I set my coffee cup down.
"That's Daniel's mother."
"Yes."
Natalie was watching me from across the kitchen table.
She didn't say anything.
She just put her hand flat on the table between us, close enough that I could reach it if I needed to.
"How much?" I asked.
"Sixty-two thousand.
Transferred in four installments.
The last one was six weeks ago."
Six weeks ago.
While I was planning our anniversary dinner.
While I was buying a navy-blue dress with silver beads.
"Rebecca, is that legal?"
"Not the way he did it.
The funds came from your joint investment account.
He didn't have sole authority to move that money.
We're looking at potential fraud on top of the asset concealment."
I heard her clicking through something on her end.
"Rachel, I need to ask you something directly.
Did you ever meet with a financial advisor named Gordon Pryce?"
The name landed like a stone dropped into still water.
"Yes.
Once.
About two years ago.
Daniel set up the meeting.
He said Gordon was restructuring our portfolio."
"Did you sign anything?"
I thought back.
A conference room.
A glass of water I didn't drink.
Papers slid across a table.
"I signed something.
Daniel said it was a rebalancing authorization."
Rebecca was quiet for three full seconds.
"It wasn't."
I stood up from the table without deciding to.
"What was it?"
"It gave Daniel limited power of attorney over three of your joint accounts.
Enough to move money without your signature on each individual transfer."
Natalie's hand was still on the table.
I reached over and held it.
"He planned this," I said.
Not a question.
"The timeline suggests at least eighteen months of preparation.
Possibly longer."
I thought about two years ago.
What we were doing two years ago.
We had just come back from a trip to Portugal.
Daniel had seemed happy.
Relaxed.
He had taken photographs of me on the beach and sent them to his mother with a caption I never saw.
He had been planning this while we were in Portugal.
"What do I do?" I asked.
"Nothing yet.
Let me file the emergency motion to freeze the remaining joint assets before he moves anything else.
Can you come in this afternoon?"
"Yes."
I hung up.
Natalie was already refilling my coffee without being asked.
"How bad?" she said.
"Worse than we thought."
She set the pot down.
"How much worse?"
"He gave his mother sixty-two thousand dollars of our money.
And he tricked me into signing a document that let him do it."
Natalie's jaw tightened.
She turned back toward the counter and stood there for a moment with her hands braced against the edge.
"Sandra knew," she said quietly.
I hadn't said it yet.
But she was right.
Sandra Whitmore had never liked me.
Not from the first dinner, not from the wedding, not from any Christmas or birthday or Sunday phone call in ten years.
She had always treated my presence in her son's life as a temporary inconvenience.
Maybe she had known it was temporary all along.
My phone lit up on the table.
An unknown number.
The same one from 2:09 a.m.
I picked it up.
"Rachel." Claire's voice was lower than I expected.
Careful.
"I wasn't sure you'd answer."
"I almost didn't."
"I understand." A pause.
"I'm not calling to apologize.
I mean — I am sorry.
But that's not why I'm calling."
"Then why are you?"
"Because Daniel told me something three weeks ago.
Something about you.
May you like
About what he was planning." Her voice dropped further.
"And I think you need to know that I wasn't the only one he was lying to."
