Chapter 8: What a Cost Analyst Does
I called my friend Diane on Tuesday morning.
Diane and I had worked together for six years before she left the firm to go in-house at a mid-size legal practice in Columbus.
She wasn't a lawyer.
She was their operations director.
But she knew lawyers the way I knew spreadsheets — which ones were good, which ones were fast, and which ones you called when you needed someone who didn't flinch.
"Tell me what you have," she said.
I told her everything.
The email thread.
The invoice.
The joint account.
The monthly transfers.
Nora's documentation.
Garrett's three messages.
When I finished, Diane was quiet for a moment.
"The threat about your employer," she said.
"That's the one that matters most right now.
Everything else is a marriage problem.
That one is potentially tortious interference and defamation.
If he actually contacts your firm, you have a cause of action."
"He hasn't contacted them yet."
"No.
But he's said it twice now — once to Nora, once to you in writing.
That's a pattern of threatening behavior.
You want to get ahead of it." She paused.
"Do you want me to refer you to someone?"
"Yes.
Someone who handles this kind of thing quietly."
"I know exactly who to call.
Her name is Patricia Voss.
She's sharp, she's fast, and she does not like bullies." A short pause.
"Brenda, are you okay?"
I looked out the window of my hotel room.
The garden.
The white curtains moving slightly in the sea breeze.
"I'm better than I've been in a while, actually."
"Good.
I'll call Patricia today.
Expect her to reach out by tomorrow."
We hung up.
I spent the rest of the morning organizing everything into a single folder — scanned documents from Nora, the email thread, the bank statement, the three messages from Garrett, my own Statement of Facts.
I labeled each item clearly, the way I would label a client file at work.
At two in the afternoon, Carson knocked on my hotel room door.
I had been expecting him.
I opened the door and stepped back to let him in.
He looked worse than he had at breakfast.
There were shadows under his eyes and his shirt was wrinkled in a way that told me he'd slept in it.
He sat down on the small chair near the window.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
"Garrett told me he messaged you," Carson said.
"He sent three messages.
The last one referenced my professional reputation again."
Carson put his face in his hands.
"I didn't ask him to do that."
"I know you didn't ask him to.
But you didn't stop him either.
You never stop him, Carson.
That's the pattern."
He looked up.
"What pattern?"
"Dana."
His face went very still.
"Nora told you about Dana."
"Nora told me what Garrett threatened to say about her.
And I found the bank statements.
The joint account.
Fourteen months of transfers from our household account.
Fifty-six hundred dollars."
He didn't deny it.
That was the moment I understood how tired he was of carrying it.
"How long has Garrett been taking money from you?" I asked.
Carson looked at the window.
"Since before we were married."
"How much total?"
"I don't know exactly."
"Estimate."
A long silence.
"Probably close to forty thousand over the years."
The number sat in the room between us.
"And you've been covering it," I said.
"Wherever you could find it."
"I kept thinking he'd get stable.
Get his business sorted.
Pay it back."
"Has he ever paid anything back?"
Carson didn't answer.
"Carson." My voice wasn't angry.
It was something quieter than that.
"He's been taking money from our life together.
And when I got close to seeing it, he threatened my career.
And you are sitting in this chair telling me you didn't know he would do that — but you're not surprised that he did."
He looked at me then.
Really looked at me.
"I'm sorry," he said.
And for the first time in three days, it didn't sound like a strategy.
"I know you are." I folded my hands in my lap.
"But sorry doesn't close the account."
He was quiet for a long time.
"What are you going to do?" he said finally.
"I've already done some of it.
The rest depends on what Garrett does next." I met his eyes.
"And what you decide to do."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you have a choice to make.
You can keep protecting him.
Or you can help me stop this." I paused.
"But I need you to decide.
Because I can't keep living in a marriage where your brother's interests come before mine."
Carson looked at his hands.
Outside, a gull cried once, sharp and clear, and then the street went quiet.
"What would helping you look like?" he said.
"It would look like closing that account.
Cutting off the transfers.
And being willing to put what you know in writing if it comes to that."
"He's my brother."
"I know he is." I didn't look away.
"And I'm your wife."
The silence that followed was the longest of the week.
Then Carson said: "Okay."
Just that.
May you like
One word.
But the way he said it — like something had finally given way — made me believe him.
