Chapter 4: What Was in the Account
My attorney's name was Carol Brennan.
She had handled my contracts for eleven years, and six months ago, when I'd walked into her office with a printed spreadsheet and shaking hands, she hadn't flinched once.
She answered on the second ring.
"I heard what you sent," she said.
"Eight months.
That's consistent with what we found."
"He said 'the account' this morning," I told her.
"He knew I'd been looking."
A pause.
"Then he's known for a while that you knew."
"Which means everything he did — the move-in, the plan with Paige — he was trying to force my hand before I could act."
"That's my read too." Papers moved on her end.
"Are they still in the house?"
"For now.
I gave them until five."
"Good.
Don't change that.
And don't touch anything in the joint account today.
Not yet."
I leaned back in my chair.
Through the closed door, I could hear voices in the kitchen — Diane's, sharp and insistent, and Paige's, which had not softened since the morning.
Eric's was the quietest of the three.
"Carol," I said.
"How bad is it?
The full picture."
She took a breath.
"Worse than the spreadsheet showed.
We've been working with the forensic accountant for the past three weeks.
The transfers started fourteen months ago.
Small amounts at first — two hundred here, five hundred there.
Then larger.
The total we can document is just over sixty thousand dollars."
The number sat in the room with me.
"Where did it go?"
"Most of it into a personal account we traced to Eric.
A portion — about eighteen thousand — went somewhere else.
We're still working on that."
"Somewhere else meaning Paige?"
"We don't know yet.
It's possible.
It's also possible it went to Diane."
I looked at the wall between me and the kitchen.
"He's been funding his exit," I said.
"Building a cushion so he could leave."
"And taking your money to do it."
I didn't say anything for a moment.
"What do I do with that?"
"Right now?
Nothing.
You let him think the only issue is the house.
You let him believe the trust document was your whole hand.
The account investigation stays quiet until we're ready."
"And when are we ready?"
"Soon," Carol said.
"The accountant files his final report by Friday.
After that, we move."
I thanked her and ended the call.
I sat at my desk for another minute.
Outside the window, the morning was ordinary — a neighbor's car backing out of a driveway, a dog walker crossing the end of the street.
Nothing about it looked like the inside of what was happening in my own house.
I opened my office door.
Eric was standing in the hallway.
Alone.
His arms were at his sides and he looked like a man who had been standing there trying to decide whether to knock.
"We need to talk," he said.
"We do," I agreed.
"But not here."
"Then where?"
"Somewhere Diane can't listen from the kitchen."
Something crossed his face — embarrassment, maybe.
He nodded.
We went to the back porch.
I left the door open behind me.
"I know about the transfers," I said.
His head came up.
"I've known for six months.
I have a forensic accountant.
I have records going back fourteen months.
Sixty thousand dollars, Eric.
That's what we can document."
"It's not what you think."
"Tell me what it is."
He looked at the yard.
A long moment passed.
A bird moved through the hedge at the back fence.
"I was going to pay it back," he said.
"From what?"
No answer.
"From Paige?" I said.
"Does she have money?"
His jaw moved.
"Her family does."
I looked at him.
The man I had been married to for six years.
The man who had stood in my kitchen the night before with his hands in his pockets while his mother pointed me toward the door.
"You were going to leave me," I said.
"Take what you could from the joint account.
Move into my house with another woman.
And pay back what you'd taken using her family's money so there'd be no record."
He didn't say yes.
He didn't say no.
"Eric." My voice didn't rise.
"That's not a marital dispute.
That's fraud."
He turned to face me then, and for the first time since I'd walked back through the front door that morning, something in his expression shifted.
The plan was gone.
What was underneath it was something older and less certain.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
Before I could answer, the back door opened.
May you like
Diane stepped onto the porch.
"Whatever she's told you," she said to Eric, not looking at me, "don't say another word."
