Chapter 4: What the Numbers Were Hiding
Eleanor's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building downtown that smelled like carpet cleaner and old coffee.
I had been there twice before — once when Everett and I drew up our wills, once when I updated the beneficiary on my life insurance policy.
Both times, Everett had been sitting beside me.
Today the chair next to mine was empty.
Eleanor set a yellow legal pad on the desk between us and clicked her pen.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"Start from the dinner."
I told her.
The announcement.
Shirley's reaction.
The airport.
The notification.
The jewelry store.
Shirley's face in the kitchen — that flat, careful *well* — and Gerald's eyes at the window.
Eleanor wrote without interrupting.
When I finished, she set her pen down.
"The forensic accountant can start Monday," she said.
"But I want to flag something before we get there." She opened a folder and slid a single page across the desk.
"I pulled the deed this morning, as you asked."
I looked at it.
"Everett's name is on it as a joint tenant," I said.
"I know that.
I signed that when we—"
"Read the date," Eleanor said quietly.
I read it.
The date on the deed amendment was not our wedding date.
It was not the date we moved in together.
It was fourteen months ago — eighteen months into what Everett had apparently been telling a woman in London was a relationship with a future.
"He added himself to the deed fourteen months ago," I said.
"He did."
"I signed this."
"You did.
Do you remember signing it?"
I stared at the page.
There was my signature, clean and familiar, next to a notary stamp.
I had no memory of it.
None.
"He told me it was insurance paperwork," I said slowly.
"About a year ago.
He brought home a stack of documents and said they needed updating.
I signed several things that evening."
Eleanor's expression didn't change, but her pen moved.
"That's a pattern," she said.
"And it's useful." She took the page back.
"It doesn't necessarily void the amendment, but it gives us a strong argument for fraudulent inducement.
Combined with the financial transfers, it builds a picture."
"What transfers?"
She opened a second folder.
"I asked the accountant to run a preliminary scan last night based on what you told me.
She found three wire transfers in the past twenty-two months.
Each one just under the reporting threshold." She turned the folder so I could read it.
"Forty-eight thousand dollars total.
All routed through a holding account registered to a company called NVL Consulting."
"I've never heard of NVL Consulting."
"No.
But Everett is listed as the sole director." Eleanor folded her hands on the desk.
"The transfers originated from your joint investment account.
The one you both contributed to for the past six years."
The room was very quiet.
"He's been moving our money," I said, "to a company he owns, that I didn't know existed, for almost two years."
"That's what the preliminary scan shows.
The full audit will take longer, but yes.
That appears to be what happened."
I looked at the folder.
Then at the empty chair beside me.
"Eleanor," I said.
"Is this criminal?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"It can be.
Fraudulent transfer of marital assets, depending on how it was structured.
Potentially wire fraud.
That's not my area — I'd want to loop in someone who handles financial crime." She paused.
"But Stella.
Before we go there, I need to ask you something."
"Ask."
"The house.
The accounts.
The transfers." She looked at me carefully.
"Is there anything else you haven't told me?
Anything you've noticed over the past few years that felt wrong but that you explained away?"
I thought about it.
I thought about the business trip to Chicago that lasted eleven days when it should have lasted four.
The new phone Everett bought himself and paid for in cash.
The weekend conference in Miami that he never mentioned again afterward.
The evening he came home smelling like a perfume I didn't own and said he'd been at dinner with a client.
"Yes," I said.
"There's more."
Eleanor picked up her pen again.
I talked for forty minutes.
When I finished, Eleanor had filled six pages of her legal pad.
She set the pen down, capped it, and looked at me across the desk.
"I want to be honest with you," she said.
"This is going to be a fight.
He has resources, and once those cards are frozen and he realizes what's happening, he will come back swinging.
He may try to negotiate.
He may try to threaten.
He may try to use the house."
"Let him try," I said.
"Stella—"
"I've been calm for twelve years," I said.
"I've let arguments go.
I've accepted things I shouldn't have accepted.
I've smiled at the airport while my husband walked toward another woman." I picked up my bag from the floor.
"I'm done being calm in ways that only benefit him."
Eleanor looked at me for a long moment.
Then she wrote one final note on her pad and underlined it twice.
"All right," she said.
"Then let's make sure we're ready when he lands."
My phone buzzed on the drive home.
May you like
An unknown international number.
I let it ring.
