Chapter 4: Everything She Didn't Know She Owned
The lawyer's name was Patricia Holt.
She met us at her front door in reading glasses and a cardigan, a yellow legal pad already on the table behind her.
She shook my hand with both of hers — firm, brief, direct — and led us straight to business.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"Don't edit.
Don't protect him.
Just facts."
So I talked.
For forty minutes I laid out eight years: the joint accounts, the house we'd bought together, the investment account Jason had insisted on managing alone because he said I found numbers stressful, the business he'd started two years ago with a partner I'd met exactly once.
Patricia wrote without looking up.
When I finished, she set down her pen.
"The investment account — is your name on it?"
"It was.
He had me sign something two years ago.
A restructuring, he called it.
Said it was for tax purposes."
Patricia looked at me over her glasses.
"Do you have a copy of what you signed?"
"No.
He handled all of it.
He always handled all of it."
"That's what I was afraid of." She tapped the legal pad.
"Here's what I need you to do before anything else.
Do not move money.
Do not confront him about the account.
Do not give him any indication that you know what you know." She looked at Carol, then back at me.
"Can you do that?"
"He wants me to come home to talk."
"Don't.
Not yet.
Tell him you need a few days.
That you're upset.
That's believable — you have every right to be upset.
But I need forty-eight hours to pull records before you sit across from him."
Carol leaned forward.
"What are we looking at?"
"Potentially, a husband who has been quietly repositioning assets ahead of a divorce he's been planning longer than his wife knew." Patricia's voice was even.
Not dramatic.
Just precise.
"If that's what happened, we need to document the current state before anything else disappears."
The word disappeared made my stomach drop.
"He wouldn't—" I stopped myself.
Two days ago I would have finished that sentence.
I didn't anymore.
"People do," Patricia said simply.
"Especially when they've had time to plan."
I drove back to Carol's house with a list of documents to locate, account numbers to photograph, and a name — Patricia's financial investigator, a man named Gerald — who would start pulling records first thing Monday morning.
That evening, Mia called from Jason's mother's house.
He'd picked her up that morning, apparently.
I hadn't known.
"Mommy, when are you coming home?"
I closed my eyes.
"Soon, baby.
Are you okay?"
"Grandma made pancakes.
Daddy's being quiet."
"That's okay.
You have fun.
I'll see you very soon."
After I hung up, I sat with the phone in my lap for a long time.
Carol came in and sat beside me on the couch.
"She's fine."
"He took her there on purpose," I said.
"So I'd feel it."
"Probably."
"It's working."
"I know." Carol put her arm around me.
"Feel it and keep moving anyway."
I leaned my head against her shoulder.
Outside the window the evening was going golden and quiet, the kind of summer evening that should have felt peaceful.
It didn't.
My phone lit up.
Not Jason this time.
Luke.
*Marcus just texted me.
He says Jason was at the office this morning.
On a Sunday.
With Diane.*
I read it twice.
*He went in to access something.
Marcus doesn't know what.
But he said Jason looked like a man in a hurry.*
I called Patricia immediately.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Natalie."
"He was at his office today.
Accessing something.
We think it might be related to the accounts."
A brief silence.
"I'll call Gerald tonight.
We move first thing tomorrow morning, not Monday." Another pause.
"Don't contact Jason.
Don't respond to anything he sends.
Let him think you're sitting at home crying."
"Okay."
"Are you sitting at home crying?"
"No," I said.
"Good," Patricia said.
"That's exactly where I need you."
She hung up.
I set the phone down on the cushion beside me.
Carol was watching me.
"Well?"
"We move tomorrow," I said.
She nodded once.
Stood up.
Went to the kitchen.
I heard the refrigerator open, the quiet sound of dinner being started.
I picked up the document list Patricia had given me and read through it again from the top.
Somewhere across town, Jason was in a hurry.
May you like
He thought he had time.
He didn't know I'd stopped coming back.
