Chapter 5: What He Did With the Money
Gerald called me the next morning.
"Donna has documents," he said.
"Bank statements, internal transfer records, a personal log she kept after Zion let her go.
She kept copies of everything."
"Is it enough?"
"It's more than enough to open a formal inquiry.
I've already spoken to a colleague who handles post-divorce financial claims.
She wants to meet with you and Donna together."
Her name was Patricia Osei.
She had an office downtown, a firm handshake, and the kind of focused attention that made you feel like the only case she had.
She spread Donna's documents across the conference table and walked me through each one slowly.
"Forty-one thousand, two hundred dollars," Patricia said.
"Moved in twenty-two separate transfers over eighteen months.
The last one was processed four days before your divorce was finalized."
"He planned it," I said.
"He was methodical about it." She tapped one of the pages.
"This account was opened in his name only, six weeks before the first transfer.
He knew what he was doing."
Donna sat across from me, her hands folded on the table.
She hadn't said much since we'd arrived.
She didn't need to.
The documents said it for her.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"We file," Patricia said.
"We present the evidence to the court and argue that the concealment of these assets constitutes fraud in the divorce proceedings.
If the judge agrees, Zion will be ordered to return the full amount, plus potential penalties."
"Will he fight it?"
"Almost certainly." She looked at me steadily.
"He'll hire someone.
He'll try to discredit Donna.
He may try to claim the transfers were for legitimate business expenses.
We'll be ready for all of it."
"How long will it take?"
"Several months, most likely.
Possibly longer if he pushes back hard." She paused.
"I want to be honest with you.
This will not be comfortable.
He will come after you.
He'll say things about you, about your marriage, about your relationship with his mother.
You need to be prepared for that."
"I've been prepared for that since the day I found him with my sister," I said.
Patricia almost smiled.
"Good."
I signed the initial paperwork that afternoon.
Zion found out within forty-eight hours.
I don't know how — through his own lawyer, most likely, or perhaps through Cara.
It didn't matter.
He called me at seven in the evening.
I let it go to voicemail.
The message lasted four minutes.
His voice started controlled and ended somewhere else entirely.
*"You think this is going to work?
You think some disgruntled ex-employee with a personal vendetta is going to hold up in court?
Donna was let go for cause.
She's been trying to damage me for months.
Nobody is going to believe her over me.
And you — dragging my mother's name into this, using her death to justify stealing what's mine — she would be ashamed of you.
She would be ashamed of what you've become."*
I listened to it once.
Then I forwarded it to Patricia.
She called back within the hour.
"The voicemail is useful," she said.
"He references Donna by name and characterizes her as having a vendetta.
That's going to be difficult for him to walk back when we put her on the stand."
"He said his mother would be ashamed of me."
A beat of silence.
"He said that to the woman his mother left her entire estate to," Patricia said.
"Let him keep talking."
I almost laughed.
It was the first time I'd come close to laughing in weeks.
I made dinner, ate it at the kitchen table, and was washing up when my doorbell rang.
I wasn't expecting anyone.
I looked through the peephole.
It was a woman I didn't recognize.
Late fifties, well-dressed, standing very still on my front step with an envelope in her hand.
I opened the door.
"Are you Nora?" she asked.
"I am."
"My name is Sylvia," she said.
"I was Valerie's oldest friend.
She asked me to give you this." She held out the envelope.
May you like
"She made me promise to wait until after the legal process had started.
She said you'd know what to do with it."
