Chapter 5: What Diane Knew
"Go inside, Mom."
Eric's voice was flat.
Diane blinked at him.
"Excuse me?"
"I said go inside."
She looked between the two of us.
Whatever she read in Eric's face made her stay exactly where she was.
"You're about to make a very serious mistake," she said to him.
"Don't let her rattle you.
She's bluffing."
"She's not bluffing," Eric said.
"Eric—"
"Mom." He turned to face her fully.
"She has the account records.
All of them."
The porch went quiet.
Diane's expression didn't collapse.
It reorganized.
The certainty pulled back behind her eyes and something more careful replaced it.
I had seen that look before — not on Diane, but on people in difficult meetings when the numbers on the table stopped matching the numbers in their heads.
"How much does she know?" Diane asked.
Not me.
Him.
"Enough," I said.
She looked at me for the first time.
"I wasn't asking you."
"I know you weren't.
But I'm the one with the forensic accountant, so I'm the one who can answer."
A beat.
"Fourteen months of transfers," I said.
"Sixty thousand documented.
And about eighteen thousand we haven't fully traced yet."
Diane's chin came up.
"I don't know what you're implying."
"I'm not implying anything.
I'm telling you what the records show.
Where that eighteen thousand went is something my attorney is still working on."
Something moved across her face.
Quick.
Gone before it fully formed.
"You don't have anything on me," she said.
"I didn't say I did.
I said we were still working on it."
Eric put his hand over his eyes.
"Mom," he said.
"Did you take money from the account?"
"Don't ask me that."
"Did you?"
"I helped you." Her voice was sharp now, defensive in a way that answered the question without answering it.
"Everything I did, I did for you.
You needed a plan.
You needed somewhere to land.
I made sure you had one."
"By taking from the joint account."
"By protecting my son."
I watched Eric absorb that.
His hand dropped from his face.
He looked at his mother the way people look at something they should have seen clearly a long time ago.
"How much?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter."
"How much, Mom?"
She crossed her arms.
"Twelve thousand.
Over four months.
I needed to cover the deposit on this arrangement.
The lease I gave up.
The storage unit for my things.
You weren't moving fast enough and I needed it to happen."
"You took twelve thousand dollars from my wife's account."
"Our account," Diane said.
"Yours and hers.
Half of it was yours."
"That's not how that works," I said.
"It's exactly how that works."
"It isn't," I said.
"And a judge will agree with me."
Diane turned to Eric.
"Get your lawyer on the phone."
"My lawyer," Eric said slowly, "is going to tell me the same thing she just did."
Paige appeared in the doorway behind Diane.
She'd changed out of the clothes she'd arrived in.
She had her tote bag over her shoulder again, and her car keys in her hand.
"I'm leaving," she said.
Everyone turned.
"I'm not part of this." Her voice was controlled, but her eyes were moving fast — from Eric to Diane to me to the door.
"I didn't know about the account.
I didn't know about any of this.
Eric told me the house was joint property and that the marriage was already over.
That's all I knew."
"Paige—" Eric started.
"Don't." She held up her hand.
"I'm not going to stand here while your mother explains to a forensic accountant why she moved money around.
I have nothing to do with that and I'm not letting it become my problem."
She looked at me directly.
It was the first time she had.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I didn't know it was your house.
I didn't know any of it was yours."
She walked past Diane, through the kitchen, and out the front door.
A moment later, a car started in the driveway.
Then it was gone.
The three of us stood on the back porch in the quiet that followed.
Kyle appeared in the doorway where Paige had just been.
He looked at his grandmother.
He looked at Eric.
He looked at me.
"Should I start packing?" he asked.
Nobody told him not to.
He disappeared back inside.
Diane sat down heavily in the porch chair.
For the first time since I'd known her, she looked her age.
"You planned all of this," she said to me.
Not accusing anymore.
Something else.
Almost wondering.
"No," I said.
"You planned all of this.
I just made sure I was ready when you did."
She looked at the yard.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"That depends on Eric," I said.
They both looked at me.
"I have everything I need to file a fraud claim and pursue full recovery of the sixty thousand dollars through the courts.
That becomes public record.
It involves lawyers, depositions, and a very long process that neither of you will enjoy."
I let that sit for a moment.
"Or," I said, "Eric signs the separation agreement Carol has prepared, agrees to full repayment on a documented schedule, and we handle this without a courtroom."
Eric stared at the fence.
"You'd let it go?" he said.
"I'd let the fraud claim go," I said.
"The marriage is already over.
That part was over before this morning."
Diane looked up at me.
Her arms were still crossed, but the grip had loosened.
"And me?" she said.
"That," I said, "depends on what the accountant finds when he finishes tracing the last six thousand."
May you like
She held my gaze for three full seconds.
Then she looked away first.
