Chapter 5: The Woman on the Phone
I walked out of the bedroom.
Behind me, Marcus said my name once.
I pulled the door shut.
I stood in the hallway with the phone pressed to my ear and my back against the wall.
"How did you get this number?" I asked.
"Tessa gave it to me," Diane said.
"My Tessa.
Not his."
I absorbed that for a moment.
"What do you want?"
"I want to tell you something before Marcus does, because what he tells you and what actually happened are going to be two different things." She paused.
"I know you found the folders.
My Tessa told me tonight.
She was worried — she's been worried for a while."
"Your daughter has been in contact with me about this?"
"No.
She's been watching from a distance.
She's seventeen, and she's smarter than her father gives her credit for." Another pause.
"She's also not the one who told him to put your name on those documents."
I waited.
"That was Marcus's idea entirely," Diane said.
"I want to be clear about that.
When he came to me two years ago and said he needed to restructure some of the financial arrangements, I told him to be honest with you.
I told him whatever he was doing with the accounts and the property, he needed your real signature on real paperwork that you actually understood." Her voice was steady and flat, like someone reading from a prepared statement.
"He told me you were aware of everything.
He told me you had agreed."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"I wasn't aware," I said.
"I hadn't agreed."
"I know that now." She exhaled.
"I'm not calling to apologize for Marcus.
That's his job.
I'm calling because my daughter has been carrying guilt about this for months, and she doesn't deserve that.
She didn't ask to be born into this situation.
She didn't ask for any of it."
"I don't blame her."
"I know you don't.
But she blames herself.
She found out what Marcus had done with your name about four months ago.
She wanted to warn you.
She didn't know how."
I thought about Tessa's message on Marcus's phone.
*Did she find the other folder?*
Not gloating.
Worried.
"She was hoping I'd find it myself," I said slowly.
"Yes."
I leaned my head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling.
"Diane.
The house in your name.
The account.
Is there anything else I don't know about?"
A pause that lasted one beat too long.
"There's a third account," she said.
"I didn't know about it until last week.
My Tessa found a statement in his car when he left it unlocked.
It's not in my name.
It's not in yours.
It's in the name of a company I've never heard of." She spelled it out for me.
"Harwell-Vance Holdings LLC."
I wrote it on the back of my hand with a pen from the hallway table.
"How much is in it?" I asked.
"Enough," she said quietly, "that I think you need to call your attorney tonight.
Not tomorrow.
Tonight."
I looked at the bedroom door.
May you like
Marcus had gone quiet on the other side of it.
That was the part that frightened me most.
