Chapter 5: Grace
Grace Holloway's office was on the fourth floor of a building downtown that smelled like coffee and old carpet.
She was fifty-three, small, with reading glasses she wore pushed up on her head like a headband and a habit of tapping her pen against her notepad when she was thinking hard.
She had handled my divorce filing.
She was the one who had told me, three months ago, to document everything.
I had not listened carefully enough then.
I was listening now.
I laid everything on her desk.
Clark's envelope.
The photos.
The financial transfer records.
The shell company registration.
And the USB drive Percy had handed me in my own kitchen.
Grace went through it without speaking.
She read slowly.
She turned pages back and read them again.
She plugged in the drive and scrolled through the folder structure without opening individual files yet.
When she finally looked up, she took her glasses off her head and set them on the desk.
"Jordan set up the shell company four months before he told you the marriage was over," she said.
"Yes."
"Which means the divorce wasn't something that happened to him.
It was something he planned."
"Yes."
She tapped her pen twice.
"The transfers total how much?"
"Clark's estimate is around two hundred and forty thousand dollars over fourteen months.
But he thinks there may be earlier transfers we haven't traced yet."
Grace wrote a number on her notepad and circled it.
"And the witness — Percy — she's willing to give a formal statement?"
"She said yes.
She has her own reasons."
"Her reasons don't matter as long as her testimony is consistent." Grace leaned back.
"Nora, what Jordan did here isn't just a divorce dispute.
Deliberately concealing and transferring marital assets before initiating divorce proceedings is fraud.
Depending on how the shell company was structured, there may be additional exposure."
I had known this was coming.
Clark had used the word fraud first, the night before the party, when he had walked me through what he had found.
But hearing Grace say it in this room, in this quiet voice, made it land differently.
"What does that mean for the divorce settlement?" I said.
"It means the settlement he agreed to is based on a fraudulent picture of your marital assets.
We can move to reopen it.
We can petition the court to freeze any remaining assets tied to the shell company.
And depending on what's on that drive—" she nodded toward her laptop "—we may have grounds for a separate civil action."
"He sent me a threatening text last night," I said.
"Unknown number."
Her pen stopped moving.
"Forward it to me immediately.
Do not respond.
Do not delete it."
"I already forwarded it to Clark."
"Good." She wrote something else.
"Has he made any contact with the children?"
"He's supposed to have them next weekend.
Standard custody schedule."
"Keep the schedule.
Do not deviate from it.
I don't want him claiming you're interfering with access.
But if he makes any contact with you that feels threatening — text, call, in person — you document it and you call me."
I nodded.
"One more thing," I said.
"His mother, Diane.
She knew about the financial restructuring.
He went to her in February.
She may have signed something."
Grace's expression didn't change, but her pen moved faster.
"I'll need to know exactly what she told you.
Word for word, as close as you can remember."
I told her.
All of it.
The lemonade glass.
The patio chair.
*He's my son.* The way she had looked at Emma in the pool before she answered.
When I finished, Grace set her pen down.
"Diane may have civil exposure depending on what she signed and what she knew at the time," she said.
"We'll need to be careful about how we approach her.
She may cooperate if she understands her own position clearly."
"She won't want to believe her position is what it is."
"Most people don't." Grace looked at me steadily.
"You're doing the right things, Nora.
I want you to know that.
A lot of people in your position would have let the birthday party be a scene and nothing more.
You turned it into evidence."
I thought about Clark handing Jordan that box.
The way Jordan's face had gone white.
"I had help," I said.
"Keep Clark on retainer for now," she said.
"I have a feeling we're not done finding things."
She was right.
Three days later, Clark called me at seven in the morning.
"I found the earlier transfers," he said.
"Nora — the shell company wasn't the first one.
There's an older account.
It goes back almost four years."
Four years.
Before our last child.
Before the pregnancy.
Before I had any idea anything was wrong.
"How much?" I said.
May you like
He told me.
I sat down on the kitchen floor and didn't get up for a long time.
