Chapter 6: The House on Alderman Road
I asked Diane for the address.
She wrote it on the back of a receipt from her wallet and slid it across the table without hesitation, like she had been waiting for someone to ask.
Dana drove.
I sat in the passenger seat with the receipt in my hand and watched the Columbus skyline shrink in the side mirror.
Forty-three minutes later, we turned onto a residential street called Alderman Road.
The house was a pale blue colonial with a wide front porch and a two-car garage.
The lawn was cut.
There were flower boxes under the front windows with red geraniums in them.
Someone had planted those recently — the soil around them was still dark.
Dana stopped the car across the street.
"Someone lives here," she said.
"Yes."
"Connor bought this in 2020.
While you were together?"
"We met in 2021." I looked at the flower boxes.
"He bought it the year before we met."
"So it could have been a rental.
An investment."
"Maybe."
But neither of us moved to leave.
A minute passed.
Then the front door opened.
A woman came out onto the porch.
Mid-forties, maybe.
Light brown hair pulled back.
She was carrying a watering can and she moved to the flower boxes without looking up, tilting the can over the geraniums with the easy routine of someone who had done it a hundred times.
Then she looked up and saw us parked across the street.
She didn't wave.
She didn't look alarmed.
She just looked.
I got out of the car.
Dana said my name, a warning, but I was already crossing the street.
The woman on the porch watched me come.
She set the watering can down on the railing.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"I'm sorry to bother you," I said.
"I'm trying to find out about this property.
I believe it's owned by a man named Connor Whitfield."
Her expression shifted.
Not surprise.
Something more careful than that.
"Connor," she said.
"Yes.
Do you know him?"
She looked at me for a long moment.
"Why are you asking?"
"Because I was supposed to marry him yesterday," I said.
"And I didn't."
She was quiet.
A car passed behind me on the street.
The geraniums moved slightly in the breeze.
"You'd better come inside," she said.
Her name was Patricia.
She had lived in the house for three years.
She paid rent directly to Connor — cash, every month, no formal lease.
She showed me the envelopes.
She kept them in a kitchen drawer, a neat stack of them, each one labeled with the month and year in her own handwriting.
"Why cash?" Dana asked.
"Why no lease?"
Patricia wrapped both hands around her coffee mug.
"He said it was simpler.
He said he didn't want the paperwork."
"Did he ever explain why he owned the house?" I asked.
"He said it was an investment.
He said he planned to sell eventually." She paused.
"He came by once a month, sometimes less.
To check on things, he said."
"Was he ever here with anyone else?" Dana asked.
Patricia looked at her coffee.
"Once.
About eight months ago.
He brought a woman.
I assumed she was a real estate agent.
They walked through the house together.
She took photographs."
"What did she look like?"
"Tall.
Blond.
Professional-looking."
Dana and I looked at each other.
"Did you ever get her name?" I asked.
"No.
But she left something behind." Patricia stood up and went to the counter.
She opened a drawer and took out a business card.
She set it on the table between us.
I picked it up.
The card was cream-colored, thick stock.
The name on it was printed in small, clean letters.
**Whitfield Property Group — Sandra Ellery, Senior Acquisitions.**
The company name stopped the air in my chest.
Whitfield Property Group.
His last name.
On a company I had never heard of.
I turned the card over.
On the back, someone had written a number in pencil.
A dollar amount.
$847,000.
"Dana," I said quietly.
She leaned over and read the card.
Her jaw tightened.
"He has a company," I said.
"With his name on it."
"That I knew nothing about."
Patricia was watching us.
"Is he in some kind of trouble?"
I set the card back on the table.
"I think he's been in trouble for a long time," I said.
"He just made sure no one could see it."
I took a photo of the card with my phone.
Then I took a photo of the stack of envelopes.
Then I stood up, thanked Patricia for the coffee, and walked back out to the car.
I sat in the passenger seat and stared at the house across the street.
At the flower boxes.
At the geraniums someone had planted recently in fresh dark soil.
Connor had bought this house before he met me.
He had a company operating under his name.
He had a tenant paying cash with no lease.
He had a woman photographing the property eight months ago.
And somewhere in all of it, there was a number written in pencil on the back of a business card.
$847,000.
My phone buzzed.
Connor again.
*I know you went to see Diane.
Please.
Before you do anything else, just talk to me.
You don't have the full picture.*
I looked at the message for a long time.
Then I called my sister, who was a family law attorney in the next state over.
She picked up on the second ring.
"I need your help," I said.
"And I need you to not ask me how I'm doing first."
May you like
A pause.
Then: "Tell me everything."
