Chapter 5: What Chloe Knew
"He told me you had already agreed to divorce," Chloe said.
"Six months ago.
He said it was mutual.
He said you were both just waiting for the right time to tell your daughter."
Elena said nothing.
"I wouldn't have — I'm not saying that excuses anything.
I know it doesn't.
But I need you to know that I didn't think I was —" Chloe stopped.
"He lied to me too."
"What did you want to tell me?" Elena said.
"You said there was something not in the folder."
A long pause.
"The Gloucester property isn't the only one," Chloe said.
"There's an account.
In Connecticut.
I only know about it because I saw a statement on his desk two months ago.
I wasn't snooping — it was just sitting there.
The account name was something like Voss Capital Holdings.
I asked him about it and he said it was an old business account, nothing current."
Elena picked up a pen from the desk.
"Do you remember the bank?"
"Meridian Private.
The statement had their logo.
I remember because I thought it was an unusual name for a bank."
"How much was in it?"
Chloe hesitated.
"The balance I saw was just over four hundred thousand dollars."
Elena wrote it down.
Her handwriting was very neat.
"Chloe," she said.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Because when I asked him about the property on the plane — the Gloucester one — he looked at me the same way he looked at you.
Like I was a problem he was calculating." Her voice was quieter now.
"I've been with him for eight months.
Not six.
He lied about that too, apparently.
And I think — I think I've been very stupid."
"You were lied to," Elena said.
"That's different from stupid."
The line was quiet for a moment.
"I'm sorry," Chloe said.
"For my part in it.
I know that probably doesn't mean much."
"It means something," Elena said.
"Not everything.
But something."
She ended the call and sat still for a moment.
Then she called Patricia.
"Meridian Private Bank," she said when Patricia picked up.
"Connecticut.
An account called Voss Capital Holdings.
I need you to find it."
"Where did this come from?"
"Chloe Marsh called me."
A beat of silence.
"The girlfriend called you."
"Yes."
"Tonight."
"About forty minutes after she and Julian left the airport in separate directions."
Patricia exhaled slowly.
"All right.
I'll have my financial investigator start first thing tomorrow.
If that account exists and it holds marital assets, Elena, we are talking about a significantly different case than the one we filed this morning."
"I know."
"Get some sleep."
"I'll try."
She didn't sleep well.
At 2 a.m.
she was still awake, lying on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling.
She thought about Julian's face when she had opened the folder on the plane.
She had expected rage.
She had expected him to try to take it from her.
Instead he had gone very still, the way he always went still when he was calculating his next move.
He was already calculating now.
She was certain of it.
Her phone lit up on the nightstand.
A text from an unknown number — different from Chloe's.
*You should have stayed home, Elena.
This is going to get very messy for you.*
She stared at it for a long moment.
Then she took a screenshot, forwarded it to Patricia with the message *received 2:04 a.m.,* and set the phone face-down.
She didn't sleep after that.
But she didn't panic either.
May you like
She lay in the dark and thought about Maya's drawing.
A house with a very large garden.
