Chapter 6: What Patrick Didn't Know About William
I drove home alone.
Diana said she needed an hour.
I didn't argue.
I took Maya's bear from the shelf, locked the unit, and left Diana standing in the parking lot with her phone already at her ear.
Maya was on the couch when I got back, still in her school clothes, a half-eaten bag of crackers beside her.
She looked up when I came through the door.
"You were gone a long time."
"I know.
I'm sorry." I sat down next to her and held out the bear.
She went very still.
"You found him."
"I found him."
She took the bear with both hands and held it against her chest.
She didn't say anything for a moment.
Then, quietly: "I knew Diana took him.
I knew she didn't donate him.
She looked at me when she said it.
Like she wanted me to know she was lying."
I put my arm around her.
"You were right."
"Is she coming back?"
I didn't answer right away.
"I don't know yet, sweetheart."
Maya nodded slowly, the way children nod when they've already prepared themselves for an answer they suspected was coming.
I made her a proper meal.
Pasta, the kind she liked, with butter and a little parmesan.
We ate at the kitchen table and she told me about a project at school, something about weather patterns, and I listened to every word.
When she went to bed, she took the bear with her and tucked it under her arm before she closed her eyes.
I sat at the kitchen table for a long time after.
The envelope was in front of me.
I had brought it home.
I went through it again, slowly this time, reading everything.
The lease was in Patrick Hartwell's name.
Same last name as Diana's maiden name.
I checked.
He was her cousin.
First cousin, on her father's side.
I sat with that for a moment.
Not a romantic partner.
A cousin.
Which meant the photograph, the hand on her back, the framing of it — it was a family property.
A family arrangement.
Which meant the twelve thousand dollars hadn't gone to a lover.
It had gone somewhere else entirely.
I called the number that had texted me.
It rang four times.
A woman answered.
"I wondered when you'd call."
"Patrick's sister?" I said.
"Renata," she said.
"Yes."
"Why did you help me?"
A pause.
"Because Diana was going to take everything and Maya was going to lose her father.
And I've watched my brother get pulled into her plans for three years and I am done watching."
"What plans?"
"Diana has been moving your assets," Renata said.
"Slowly.
Carefully.
The storage unit is where she keeps the paperwork trail.
She's been building a case to make it look like you were financially irresponsible.
The bank account, the property lease, the documentation of your travel schedule — it was all going to be used in a divorce filing to establish that she was the financially stable party."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"She was going to take Maya," Renata said.
"Full custody.
She had a family law attorney already.
She filed a preliminary consultation two months ago."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because she moved the timeline up," Renata said.
"The twelve thousand dollars wasn't savings.
May you like
It was a retainer.
She paid the attorney three days ago."
