Chapter 6: Someone Else Knew
The number traced back to a prepaid phone.
Patricia confirmed that within a day through a contact she didn't name.
Untraceable.
But the message itself was a door.
*You should ask Trevor who else knew.*
I made a list of possibilities.
Trevor's friends — the ones supposedly on the vacation that wasn't a vacation.
His colleague who knew Gerald Fitch.
Someone at his office.
Someone who had watched this unfold and had finally decided they couldn't stay quiet.
Or Dana Marsh herself.
I sat with that last possibility for a long time.
Carol was the one who moved first.
She had Trevor's phone number for one of his closest friends, a man named Russ who had been at our wedding and had, according to Trevor, been on the beach trip.
"I'm going to call him," she said.
"He'll warn Trevor," I said.
"Let him," Carol said.
"I'm not asking for evidence.
I'm asking a mother's question."
She called from the kitchen.
I stayed in the living room and did not listen.
She was in there for eleven minutes.
When she came back, she sat down and folded her hands on the table.
"Russ wasn't on the trip," she said.
"He was never invited.
He said Trevor told him two months ago that things at home were complicated and that he needed some space to think."
"Two months ago," I said.
"He said he assumed it was a rough patch.
He didn't know about Dana." She paused.
"He said he's sorry.
He said if he'd known, he would have called me."
"Does he know anything else?"
Carol hesitated.
"He said there was someone at Trevor's office.
A woman named Patrice.
He said she and Trevor were close, and that about six weeks ago she had started acting strange around him.
Distant.
Like she knew something she didn't want to know."
I picked up my phone and opened the browser.
Trevor's company had a staff directory on their website.
I found Patrice Okafor.
Senior project coordinator.
Office two floors below Trevor's.
I wrote down her work email.
Patricia, when I showed her, was quiet for a moment.
"I can't compel her to speak to us.
But you can reach out personally.
If she responds, anything she says voluntarily is usable."
I wrote the email that afternoon.
I kept it short.
I told her who I was.
I told her I wasn't looking to cause trouble for her.
I told her I was a new mother trying to understand what had happened to my marriage, and that if she knew anything, I would be grateful.
I hit send and put the phone face-down.
My mom brought both girls in and set them on the play mat on the floor.
For a few minutes I just watched them.
Their small fists opening and closing.
The way they breathed in almost the same rhythm.
Trevor had not met them yet.
Not properly.
He had seen them for thirty seconds in the living room before the conversation swallowed everything.
I didn't know how I felt about that.
I didn't know if I was supposed to feel something on their behalf, or if they were too new to the world to have been wronged by it yet.
My phone buzzed.
Patrice Okafor had replied.
In under two hours.
*I've been hoping someone would ask.
Can we meet in person?
Not at the office.*
I read it twice.
Then I called Patricia.
"She responded," I said.
"When can she meet?"
"She didn't say yet."
"Write back today," Patricia said.
"Don't give her time to change her mind."
We met two days later at a coffee shop twenty minutes from my house.
My mom stayed with the girls.
Carol offered to come with me and I said no — I needed Patrice to feel safe, not surrounded.
She was already there when I arrived.
Late thirties, neat and careful-looking, hands wrapped around a mug she wasn't drinking from.
She stood when she saw me.
"You look — I'm sorry.
I didn't know you'd just had surgery."
"I'm fine," I said.
I sat down.
"Thank you for coming."
She sat.
Looked at her mug.
"I found out about Dana in January.
I overheard a phone call I wasn't supposed to hear.
I told myself it wasn't my business." She looked up.
"I've felt sick about it ever since."
"What did you hear?"
"He was telling her the plan.
That he was going to wait until after the babies came.
That he had already talked to a lawyer.
That she just needed to be patient a little longer."
January.
Four months before the vacation.
Five months before the birth.
"He told her to be patient," I said.
"He said—" Patrice stopped.
Pressed her lips together.
"He said the timing had to be right.
That he couldn't leave while you were pregnant because it would look bad.
Those were his exact words.
*It would look bad.*"
The coffee shop was warm and ordinary around us.
Someone's child was laughing at the next table.
"Would you be willing to put that in writing?" I said.
She didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
"It may mean being deposed.
Testifying."
"I know." She wrapped both hands tighter around the mug.
"He knew I'd heard him.
He never said so directly, but he knew.
And he never said a word to me about it.
Just kept coming into the office every day like everything was fine." Her jaw tightened.
"I have two kids.
I kept thinking about you.
About what it would feel like to not know."
I nodded.
I didn't trust my voice quite yet.
"There's one more thing," Patrice said.
She reached into her bag and set a folded printout on the table.
"I printed this before I left the office.
I don't know if it matters."
It was an internal email chain.
Trevor's name at the top.
The subject line was a project code I didn't recognize.
But the content wasn't about a project.
It was about the joint account.
The money he had moved.
And who he had moved it to.
May you like
The name on the receiving account was not Dana Marsh.
It was Gerald Fitch.
