Chapter 6: What He Came Home to Collect
Her sister's name was Ruth.
She had a spare room with a quilt their mother had made, and she put Caitlin in it without asking too many questions, and she made tea without being asked, and she sat across from Megan at the kitchen table and listened to the whole thing without interrupting once.
When Megan finished, Ruth set down her mug.
"The bracelet," she said.
"I have it."
"And the filing cabinet — the statements."
"Carol said to get them before he does."
Ruth stood up.
"Then let's go get them."
"Ruth—"
"He's not there.
You said he went to get his attorney." She was already picking up her car keys.
"We have a window.
Let's use it."
They drove in Ruth's car.
Megan kept her phone in her hand.
No messages from Grant.
No calls.
That felt worse somehow than if he'd been shouting.
The house looked the same as it always did from the outside — the flower boxes Megan had planted in April, the porch light on a timer, the recycling bins still at the curb from Tuesday.
She had lived here for nine years.
She had painted the front door herself.
She used her key.
It still worked.
"Bedroom first," Ruth said.
"Anything personal.
Then the office."
Megan went to the bedroom.
She pulled her passport from the nightstand.
Her mother's other jewelry from the small box on the dresser.
The folder she kept at the back of the closet shelf with the children's birth certificates, her own social security card, the deed documents from 2019 that she now understood differently than she had this morning.
She found the quitclaim deed in the office filing cabinet.
Her signature was on it.
Or something that looked like her signature — close enough to pass a quick glance, wrong in the small ways that only she would notice.
The loop on the g in her last name.
The way she always crossed the k slightly high.
She photographed it with her phone.
Then she took the original.
Ruth appeared in the doorway.
"Investment statements?"
"Bottom drawer."
They worked fast and without talking.
Ruth found three years of statements.
Megan found the life insurance documents and a folder she hadn't seen before — unlabeled, tucked behind the hanging files at the very back of the drawer.
She opened it.
Inside were printed emails.
Forty or fifty pages.
The top one was dated fourteen months ago, addressed to someone named P.
Harmon at a financial consulting firm.
The subject line read: *Re: Asset protection strategy — pre-dissolution.*
Megan read the first paragraph.
Then she sat down on the office floor.
"Megan." Ruth crouched beside her.
"What is it?"
"He planned this." Her voice came out flat.
"Before he even met Vanessa.
He was already planning this fourteen months ago." She looked up.
"This wasn't about her.
She was just — convenient."
Ruth took the folder from her hands and looked at the top page.
Her expression didn't change much.
But her jaw set.
"We're taking this," Ruth said.
"That's what I was going to say."
They were back in the car in eleven minutes.
Megan sent Carol a photograph of the quitclaim deed from the driveway.
Carol replied in under two minutes: *Perfect.
Don't go back inside.
I'll call you at 8am.*
Megan put her phone in her lap.
Ruth pulled out of the driveway and didn't look back at the house.
Megan did.
Once.
The porch light was still on its timer.
The flower boxes were still there.
She faced forward.
Her phone buzzed.
A text from Grant.
*I know you went to the house.
We need to talk before this goes any further.
I can make this easier for you.
Or I can make it very hard.
Your choice.*
Ruth glanced over.
"Him?"
"Yes."
"What does he want?"
Megan locked her phone and set it face-down on her knee.
"He wants me to be afraid," she said.
Ruth kept driving.
"Is it working?" she asked.
Megan thought about the folder in the back seat.
The emails.
The forged signature.
May you like
The $214 left in an account that had held their savings.
"Not anymore," she said.
