Chapter 6: The Older Account
Clark came to my house that evening with a folder twice as thick as the first one.
He sat across from me at the kitchen table and laid it out page by page, the way a doctor delivers a diagnosis they've been dreading — careful, precise, watching my face.
The older account had been opened four years and three months ago.
It was registered under a different name: a business called Meridian Consulting Group.
No website.
No employees.
A post office box in a suburb forty minutes from our house.
"He used it differently than the shell company," Clark said.
"The shell company was for larger transfers, harder to trace.
Meridian was for smaller, regular amounts.
Enough to look like ordinary business expenses."
"How much total?"
"Across both accounts, we're looking at somewhere between four hundred and four hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
I had been holding a mug of tea.
I set it down.
"Four years," I said.
"At minimum." Clark turned to a page near the back of the folder.
"This is the first transaction we've been able to confirm.
But the account structure suggests it may have been active longer.
We're still working on getting older records."
I looked at the date on the page.
Four years and three months ago, I had been trying to get pregnant with our fourth child.
Jordan and I had talked about it seriously, decided together, been hopeful together.
He had been excited.
Or I had believed he was excited.
"Clark," I said.
"What was he spending it on?"
"Some of it was lifestyle.
Restaurants, hotels, travel.
Things that wouldn't show up on a joint statement." He paused.
"Some of it went to Percy, directly.
Rent payments, car payments, a few larger transfers I'm still tracing."
"And the rest?"
He hesitated.
"There's a third name on some of the older transfers," he said.
"A woman named Sylvie Marsh.
She received payments for about fourteen months, ending roughly two and a half years ago."
Sylvie Marsh.
I had never heard that name in my life.
"Who is she?"
"I'm still finding out.
What I know is that she received just over sixty thousand dollars over those fourteen months, and then the payments stopped completely." He looked at me carefully.
"I don't know yet why they stopped."
I thought about what Percy had said in my kitchen.
*There were at least two others.
Emails going back three years.*
Percy had found emails.
Clark had found money.
They were pointing at the same thing from different directions.
"The USB drive Percy gave me," I said.
"Have you looked at it?"
"Grace sent me a copy yesterday." He nodded.
"There are emails in there from Sylvie Marsh.
The last one is dated about two and a half years ago.
It's — it's not friendly."
"Show me."
He turned his laptop to face me.
The email was short.
Eight lines.
Sylvie Marsh had written it at eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night, and every line of it was controlled fury barely held in place by punctuation.
The last line read: *You told me the same things you're telling her now.
I have proof.
Don't contact me again or I will use it.*
I read it twice.
"She threatened him," I said.
"And he stopped paying her," Clark said.
"Whether she still has what she was referring to — I don't know.
But I'm trying to find her."
I closed the laptop.
Jordan had done this for four years.
Possibly longer.
He had sat across from me at this table, in this kitchen, and looked at me and spoken to me and planned holidays with me and held our children, and underneath all of it, this had been running.
"I need you to find Sylvie Marsh," I said.
"I'm working on it."
My phone rang.
Jordan's name on the screen.
I looked at Clark.
He gave a small nod.
I answered.
"Nora." Jordan's voice was smooth.
Controlled.
The voice he used in meetings.
"I think we need to talk.
Calmly.
Like adults."
"I'm listening," I said.
"What happened at the party was a mistake.
You were upset, you hired someone, things got out of hand.
I understand that." A pause.
"But we have children together.
And I think, before this goes any further, we should sit down.
Just the two of us.
No lawyers.
No investigators.
And talk about what a reasonable resolution looks like."
I said nothing.
"I'm prepared to be generous," he said.
"More generous than the current settlement.
I just need you to agree to hand over whatever Clark gave you and walk away from this."
I looked at the folder on my kitchen table.
Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Four years.
Sylvie Marsh's eight-line email.
"I'll think about it," I said.
"Good." The smoothness in his voice relaxed slightly.
"That's all I'm asking."
"I'll be in touch," I said, and ended the call.
Clark was watching me.
"You're not going to think about it," he said.
May you like
"No," I said.
"But now we know he's scared."
