Chapter 4: The Problem With the Account
"What kind of problem?" I asked.
Daniel's pause lasted one beat too long.
"The joint account.
Ethan made a transfer this morning.
Before the audit was formally filed."
I set the mop against the wall.
"How much?"
"One hundred and forty thousand."
The number sat there.
"Can we stop it?"
"It cleared two hours ago.
The receiving account is registered to a holding company in Delaware.
We're tracing it, but these structures are designed to slow that down." Another pause.
"Mabel, if he knew you had the audit documents, he may have moved faster than we anticipated."
"He knew," I said.
"I showed him the papers an hour ago."
Daniel exhaled slowly.
"All right.
That changes the timeline.
I need you to come into the office this afternoon.
We need to file for a freeze on all remaining joint assets before he makes another move.
Can you be here by two?"
"I'll be there at one-thirty," I said.
I ended the call and stood in the kitchen.
The floor was clean.
The house was quiet.
Through the front window I could see Ethan's car still in the driveway.
He hadn't left.
I walked to the hallway.
His voice came from the study again — the same room where I had heard him on the video call the night before.
The door was half open.
"I need it moved again," he was saying.
"Today, not tomorrow.
Yes, all of it." A pause.
"She has a lawyer.
He's good.
Don't give him time to file."
I pushed the door open.
Ethan turned.
The phone was still at his ear.
He didn't hang up.
"Get out," he said to me.
"This is my house," I said.
"You have until Friday.
But if you move another dollar out of any account we share, I will call the fraud line at the bank myself and I will be very specific about the dates, the amounts, and the names."
He stared at me.
"Tell whoever that is that you'll call them back," I said.
A long moment passed.
Then he lowered the phone and ended the call.
"You don't know what you're doing," he said.
"I know exactly what I'm doing.
I've known for six months."
Something shifted in his face.
"Six months."
"I hired an investigator in February," I said.
"When you stopped answering calls after nine PM.
I had the financial records by April.
The lease by May." I let that settle.
"I wasn't waiting for you to come home, Ethan.
I was waiting for the right moment."
He sat down in the chair behind the desk — his chair, the one he'd had since before we married.
He looked, for the first time, like a man who understood the shape of what was happening to him.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I want what's mine.
The house.
My half of the joint assets, minus what you've already taken.
And I want your signature on the divorce papers by the end of the month."
"And if I don't sign?"
"Then Daniel files for contested divorce and we go through discovery.
Every transfer.
Every flight.
Every hotel.
Every conversation with that holding company in Delaware." I paused.
"Vance Global's board will find it very interesting reading."
His jaw tightened.
"You'd go to the board."
"I'd go wherever I needed to go."
He was quiet for a long moment.
His hand rested on the desk, fingers spread flat against the wood.
"I did love you," he said.
It came out differently than I expected — not as a weapon, not as a manipulation.
It sounded almost like a confession.
"I know you did," I said.
"Once."
I left him in the study and went upstairs to get ready for Daniel's office.
I was pulling on my coat when my phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
*We need to talk.
About the apartment.
About what's really in it.
— C*
I read it twice.
Then I typed back: *When?*
The reply came in under a minute.
May you like
*Now.
I'm outside.*
