Chapter 5: What My Sister Finally Admitted
I told Sandra about Claire's call before I agreed to anything.
"Meet her in a public place," Sandra said.
"Take nothing with you that she could later claim you showed her.
And if she says anything that sounds legally significant, I want to know immediately."
We met at a coffee shop two towns over — neutral ground, Claire had suggested, which told me she was thinking about it the same way I was.
She was already seated when I arrived.
She looked thinner than I remembered.
The glow she'd had at the engagement announcement was gone.
I sat down across from her.
I didn't order anything.
"Thank you for coming," she said.
"Say what you need to say."
She wrapped both hands around her cup.
"Before Daniel and I got together — before any of this — he had already opened a second bank account.
I found statements.
Going back almost two years before he left you."
I went very still.
"He was moving money," she said.
"Not huge amounts at first.
A few hundred here.
A few hundred there.
But by the time he filed for divorce, it was significant.
I don't know the exact number.
But significant."
"How did you find this?"
"I went looking.
After the wedding, things felt wrong.
He was secretive about money in ways I hadn't noticed before because I was too — " She stopped.
"I wasn't paying attention to the right things."
"Claire.
Why are you telling me this now?"
She looked up.
Her eyes were wet but she wasn't crying.
"Because he did it to you first.
And because I think he may be doing it to me now.
And because—" She exhaled.
"Because what we did to you was wrong.
I know that doesn't fix anything."
I looked at her for a long moment.
My sister.
The person I had grown up with, shared a bedroom with, called first when anything happened — good or bad — for most of my life.
"It doesn't fix anything," I said.
"I know."
"But I need the account information.
Whatever you found.
Statements, account numbers, dates.
All of it."
She opened her bag and slid a folded envelope across the table.
I picked it up.
I didn't open it there.
"There's something else," Claire said.
"He has a storage unit.
He's been paying for it for three years.
I don't know what's in it.
He's never mentioned it.
May you like
I only found it because I saw the charge on an old credit card statement."
I called Sandra from the parking lot before I even started the car.
