Chapter 6: The Second Meeting
Crane's office looked exactly the same.
Same charcoal suit.
Same yellow legal pad.
Same pen.
David looked different.
He'd lost weight in the ten days since the first meeting — not dramatically, but enough.
The kind of weight that comes off a man who has stopped sleeping properly.
He looked at me when I walked in this time.
I sat down across from him and opened my folder.
Crane started carefully.
"We appreciate the opportunity to continue this conversation.
My client has reflected on the matters raised at our last meeting and is prepared to engage in good faith on all outstanding issues."
"Good faith," Grace said.
"That's a useful starting point." She opened her own folder.
"We have some additional materials to introduce."
Crane's pen stopped moving.
Grace slid three pages across the table.
"These are transfer records from the Scottsdale account.
Specifically, the withdrawals made over the past fourteen months — totaling sixty-three thousand dollars — and the corresponding deposits into a separate account registered to a limited liability company incorporated in Nevada."
David's eyes went to Crane.
Crane picked up the pages.
Read the first one.
His expression stayed neutral, but he turned to David and gave him a look I wasn't supposed to interpret.
I interpreted it anyway.
It said: *you didn't tell me about this.*
"We'll need time to review these documents," Crane said.
"Of course," Grace said.
"We'd also like to introduce this." She slid the screenshot across the table.
"This is a communication between your client and a third party, in which your client characterizes my client as mentally unstable and advises the third party on how to respond if called as a witness.
The timestamps place this conversation eight months ago — well before any filing."
The room was very quiet.
David picked up the screenshot.
I watched his face as he read it.
Something happened there — a quick, involuntary tightening around the eyes.
He set it down.
"That's a private conversation," he said.
"It was sent to my client voluntarily," Grace said.
"By the third party."
David looked at me.
"She sent that to you."
"She did."
"Why?"
"I think," I said, "because she started to understand what you'd been doing."
He leaned back in his chair.
His hands went flat on the table.
"I want to talk to you," he said.
"Not through attorneys.
Just us."
"No."
"Olivia—"
"No, David.
Everything goes through Grace."
He looked at Crane.
Crane gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
David looked back at me.
The recalculation was happening again — I could see it.
He was trying to find the angle, the approach, the version of this conversation where he still came out ahead.
"What do you want?" he said finally.
"What I'm entitled to."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I have." I kept my voice even.
"You hid sixty-three thousand dollars in a shell company.
You were using our joint account to fund a life you were planning without me.
You coached a witness before I'd even filed.
You had twenty-two years to be honest with me, and you chose not to be." I looked at him.
"So yes.
I want what I'm entitled to.
Every dollar of it."
Something shifted in his face.
The recalculation stopped.
For the first time since this had started, he looked tired instead of strategic.
"The Nevada company," he said.
"It's not what it looks like."
"Then explain it."
A pause.
He looked at Crane.
Crane said, carefully, "My client would like to discuss the Nevada entity in a more appropriate—"
"It was supposed to be a business," David said.
"A restaurant.
I was going to tell you."
I looked at him.
"A restaurant," I said.
"I know how that sounds."
"You took sixty-three thousand dollars from our shared finances to fund a restaurant you were going to open with the woman who showed up on my porch."
He didn't answer.
That was the answer.
Grace closed her folder.
"I think we have what we need for today." She stood.
"Mr.
Crane, we'll expect a revised proposal by end of week.
Given the new materials, I think you'll find our position has adjusted accordingly."
Crane nodded.
He didn't look at David.
In the elevator, Grace said nothing until the doors closed.
Then: "A restaurant."
"A restaurant," I said.
She looked straight ahead.
"Sixty-three thousand dollars and a Nevada LLC for a restaurant he was going to tell you about."
"That's what he said."
Grace shook her head once — a small, precise movement.
"Crane is going to call me tonight and ask what number makes this go away."
"What will you tell him?"
"I'll tell him I'll ask my client." She looked at me.
"What number makes this go away, Olivia?"
I thought about the oak tree in the backyard.
The garden I'd planted.
Twenty-two years of Thursdays and grocery lists and arguments about the thermostat and a man who had looked me in the eye every morning while building something else entirely somewhere else.
"A real one," I said.
May you like
Grace almost smiled.
"I'll tell him that," she said.
