Chapter 4: What the Documents Said
I drove Amelia home first.
I got the other three kids settled with a neighbor, told them I'd be back by dinner, and kept my voice steady the whole time.
Amelia didn't ask any more questions.
She sat at the kitchen table and ate a bowl of cereal like the day had used up everything she had.
I kissed the top of her head before I left.
My cousin, Patrice, was waiting for me in the parking lot of a coffee shop two blocks from the venue.
She had Diane with her.
I almost turned around.
I sat down anyway.
Diane wrapped both hands around a paper cup and didn't look at me directly at first.
Up close she looked younger than I'd thought — and exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with today.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I know that doesn't mean anything to you."
"It doesn't," I said.
"But I'm here.
So talk."
She reached into her bag and set a folder on the table.
"I didn't know about you at first," she said.
"He told me he was separated.
That the marriage had been over for years.
That you were just waiting on paperwork."
I opened the folder.
Bank statements.
An account I had never seen — opened eighteen months ago, joint between Ryan and a name I didn't recognize.
Withdrawals, regular and large, going to a separate account.
"That's his mother's maiden name," Diane said, pointing to the account holder.
"He opened it under her name.
I didn't know that either, not until my brother helped me trace it."
Patrice leaned forward.
"How much total?"
"Forty-three thousand dollars.
Over fourteen months."
The number sat on the table between us.
"He told me it was savings," Diane continued.
"That he was setting it aside for when we could be together properly.
For the baby." She paused.
"Our son's name is Marcus.
He's seven months old.
Ryan has seen him twice."
I closed the folder.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.
"Because Lauren's lawyer is going to come after me," she said.
"And because Ryan called me this morning — before the wedding — and told me that if I ever contacted him again, he would tell people I was unstable.
That I'd fabricated the whole thing.
That the baby wasn't his." Her jaw tightened.
"He said he had people who would back him up."
"He threatened you."
"He's been threatening me for three months.
I just didn't have anywhere to go with it until today."
Patrice slid her phone across the table.
A voice message, already pulled up.
I pressed play.
Ryan's voice came through the speaker, low and controlled and completely recognizable: *"You need to understand something, Diane.
If you show up anywhere near that wedding, I will make sure everyone knows you're a liar.
I have friends at your workplace.
I know your landlord personally.
Don't test me on this."*
The message ended.
The three of us sat there.
"He didn't know you'd saved it," I said.
"He never thinks anyone saves anything." She looked up at me.
"I have six more like that."
I sat back in my chair.
For thirteen years I had believed that Ryan was careless with the truth but not calculated.
That he lied the way weak people lie — out of cowardice, not strategy.
Sitting in that coffee shop, listening to his voice on that recording, I understood I had been wrong about that too.
"What do you want?" I asked her.
"I want him to acknowledge Marcus legally.
I want child support through the courts, not whatever he decides to hand me when he's feeling generous." She paused.
"And I want him to stop threatening me."
"You need a lawyer."
"I can't afford one.
Not a good one."
Patrice looked at me.
I looked at the folder.
"I know someone," I said slowly.
"She handled my divorce.
She's good."
Diane blinked.
"Why would you help me?"
I thought about Amelia at that microphone.
About the letter in her small hand.
About the baby I had lost in the middle of all that stress, while Ryan was setting up a secret bank account and threatening the mother of his other child.
"I'm not helping you," I said.
"I'm making sure he doesn't get away with any of it."
I picked up the folder and put it in my bag.
Patrice's phone buzzed on the table.
She looked at it and her expression shifted.
"What?" I said.
She turned the screen toward me.
A text from someone still at the venue.
*Ryan just went back inside.
May you like
He's talking to the officiant.
He wants to finish the ceremony.*
