Chapter 4: What Zoe Already Knew
Lily was asleep before we reached the end of the block.
Zoe had brought a blanket — of course she had — and Lily was wrapped in it across the back seat, her cheek finally hidden against the fabric, her breathing soft and even.
I sat beside her with one hand resting on her back and watched the city move past the window.
The other SUV followed behind us with Daniel and the two women whose names I still didn't know.
"Who are they?" I asked.
"The one in the gray coat is a family law paralegal.
The other one is a process server." Zoe glanced at me from the front passenger seat.
"We needed a witness present when the papers were handed over.
Everything is documented."
"You thought of everything."
"You hired Daniel.
Daniel thinks of everything." She paused.
"I just drove fast."
I almost smiled.
Almost.
"Zoe." I kept my voice low so as not to wake Lily.
"What did Megan mean?
About an account."
Zoe didn't answer immediately.
She looked out the windshield.
The driver — a quiet man who had not said a single word — kept his eyes on the road.
"Zoe."
"I don't know for certain," she said.
"But I have a guess."
"Tell me."
She turned in her seat to face me properly.
"Six weeks ago, you asked me to look into something.
The joint savings account.
The one you said had been lower than it should be for about a year."
I remembered.
I had mentioned it once, almost in passing, over coffee.
I hadn't even been sure I was right.
Numbers moved in and out of that account regularly — Mark handled most of the household finances, which I had agreed to early in the marriage because he'd said he was better at it and I had believed him.
"You looked into it?"
"I asked a friend to look into it.
Someone who knows how to read financial records." Zoe's voice was careful.
"Chloe, money has been moving out of that joint account on a regular schedule for fourteen months.
Small amounts.
Between eight hundred and twelve hundred dollars.
Always on a Tuesday."
The city kept moving outside the window.
"Where was it going?" I asked.
"A separate account.
Not in your name."
I sat with that for a moment.
"How much total?"
"Just under nineteen thousand dollars."
Lily shifted in her sleep.
I kept my hand on her back.
"He was hiding money," I said.
"That's what it looks like."
"For what?"
"That," Zoe said, "is what Daniel is going to find out."
I thought about the way Megan had said it.
Not panicked.
Deliberate.
Like a warning.
*The account comes out.* She hadn't said it to me.
She had said it to Mark.
Which meant Megan already knew about it.
"She knew," I said.
"Yes."
"How long has she known?"
"I don't know.
But the fact that she used it as a threat tonight — that tells us something." Zoe's voice was steady, but her eyes were sharp.
"She wasn't trying to protect Mark.
She was trying to protect herself."
"Why would Megan need to protect herself from a divorce filing?"
Zoe looked at me for a long moment.
"That's the question," she said.
We pulled up to my building — the Lakeview apartment I had quietly moved most of my important documents to over the past eight weeks.
Lease in my name only.
Signed six weeks ago.
Daniel was already out of the second SUV, waiting on the sidewalk.
"We need to talk tonight," he said as I carried Lily toward the entrance.
"Not long.
Twenty minutes."
"Now?"
"There's something you need to know before tomorrow morning." He held the door.
"I'm sorry.
I know it's late."
I looked at him.
In seven years of marriage I had learned to read the faces of people who were managing bad news carefully.
Daniel had that look now — composed, professional, but underneath it, something tight.
"Tell me," I said.
He waited until we were inside, until Lily was settled on the couch with her blanket, until Zoe had closed the door behind us and the three of us were standing in the kitchen with the light low.
Then he set his bag on the counter and took out a single printed page.
"This came through this afternoon," he said.
"Before we left tonight.
I didn't want to tell you on the doorstep."
I took the page.
It was a property record.
A deed transfer.
The address was the marital home on Elm Street — the house Mark and I had bought together four years ago, the house where Lily had her bedroom with the yellow curtains and the growth chart marked on the doorframe.
The transfer date was eleven days ago.
The name on the receiving end of the transfer was not mine.
It was Carol Peterson.
My mother-in-law had been given our house.
May you like
Eleven days ago.
While I was still living in it.
