Chapter 4: The Woman Who Had Been Waiting
We sat in Maya's car with the engine running and the heat on low.
Diane leaned forward from the back seat and read the message twice.
"Don't call from your phone," she said.
"Use mine."
She dialed.
Put it on speaker.
Set it on the center console between us.
It rang four times.
"I wasn't sure you'd call." The voice was a woman's.
Older than me.
Careful.
"Who is this?" Diane asked.
"My name is Patrice Weller.
I was Ryan Mercer's bookkeeper for six years.
Until eight months ago, when he let me go."
Nobody spoke.
"I've been watching the situation," Patrice continued.
"I know that sounds strange.
But I have documents.
Financial records from the three years before he fired me.
I kept copies."
"What kind of records?" Diane said.
"The kind that show Ryan has been moving money out of joint accounts and into a private holding account since before he married Claire.
There are transfers — regular, structured to stay under reporting thresholds.
It wasn't gambling losses.
The gambling was real, but it wasn't where most of the money went."
I stared at the phone.
"Where did it go?" I said.
A pause.
"There's a second family," Patrice said.
"A woman in Racine.
Two children.
Ryan has been supporting them for at least four years."
Maya's hand found mine on the armrest.
"I can send the documents tonight," Patrice said.
"Bank statements, transfer records, a lease agreement in Ryan's name at a Racine address.
I also have emails.
He used a personal account he thought was separate from anything I could access.
He was wrong about that."
Diane picked up the phone.
"Ms.
Weller, I need you to understand — if you provide these documents, you may be called as a witness.
Are you prepared for that?"
"I've been prepared for eight months," Patrice said.
"I tried to walk away from it.
I couldn't."
"Why not?" I asked.
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Because I have a daughter," she said.
"She's thirty-one.
Her husband did the same thing to her.
Nobody helped her in time." Her voice didn't break, but it thinned.
"I wasn't going to let that happen to someone else if I could stop it."
I pressed my hand flat against my knee to keep it still.
"Send everything to my secure email," Diane said.
She read out the address slowly.
"Tonight, if you can."
"It's already drafted," Patrice said.
"I'll send it the moment we hang up."
Diane ended the call.
The three of us sat quietly for a moment.
Rain had started — light, barely audible against the roof of the car.
"A second family," Maya said.
Not a question.
Just the words, placed carefully in the air.
"It changes the financial picture significantly," Diane said.
She was already typing on her own phone.
"If those transfers are documented the way she's describing, we're not looking at a simple divorce settlement.
We're looking at financial fraud.
Potentially years of it."
"What does that mean for Claire?" Maya asked.
"It means the money he moved doesn't disappear.
Courts can reach it." Diane looked up.
"It also means Ryan's position tonight — trying to threaten a freeze on the joint account — just became a much more serious problem for him."
I hadn't said anything for several minutes.
"He told me it was gambling," I said finally.
"Every time money was missing, he said it was gambling.
He cried about it once.
Told me he was going to get help."
Nobody filled the silence.
"He wasn't crying about gambling," I said.
"No," Diane said quietly.
"He probably wasn't."
My phone buzzed.
I looked down.
A text from my mother.
*Ryan called.
He says you've done something very foolish.
Your father and I think you should go back and talk to him in the morning when things have calmed down.*
I turned the phone face-down on my lap.
Maya started the car.
"Don't answer it tonight," she said.
"I know," I said.
She pulled out of the parking space.
I watched the building disappear in the side mirror.
Somewhere in Racine, there was a woman who didn't know that tonight, everything had changed.
May you like
I didn't know her name yet.
But by morning, I would.
