Chapter 5: What Margot Knew
Grace left at six with the recorder and the folder and a list of next steps that filled two pages of her legal pad.
Uncle Richard walked her to the elevator.
I sat in his office alone for the first time since the hallway, and I let myself feel the size of it.
Three years.
Eight months of transfers.
A forged signature on a day he brought me yellow tulips.
I thought about every dinner where he'd slid a paper across the table.
Every time I'd reached for a pen without reading.
Every time he'd said, "It's just routine, Tessa, don't worry about it."
I had trusted him the way you trust the floor beneath your feet.
You don't check the floor.
You just walk.
Uncle Richard came back and set a cup of tea on the desk beside me without asking if I wanted it.
"Grace is good," he said.
"I know." I wrapped both hands around the cup.
"Uncle Richard.
What do you know about Margot?"
He sat down.
"What do you want to know?"
"How long has it been going on?"
"From what I can piece together, at least fourteen months.
Possibly longer." He paused.
"She isn't just his girlfriend, Tessa.
She's been functioning as a business partner.
The two holding companies she's listed on — she has signing authority.
She's been an active participant in the transfers, not a passive one."
I set the cup down.
"She knew what he was doing to me."
"She was part of it."
The word landed differently than I expected.
Not like a shock.
Like a confirmation of something I had felt in my body for months without having language for it.
"She was in that hallway today," I said.
"She pushed me.
She told me to remember where I belong." I looked at Uncle Richard.
"She knew.
While she was saying those things to me, she knew what they had done."
"Yes."
I thought about Margot's face after she pushed me.
The small, satisfied pause before she reached for Bennett's arm.
It hadn't been cruelty in the moment.
It had been conclusion.
Like someone crossing the last item off a list.
"Can Grace go after her too?" I asked.
"She's already planning to.
Margot's signing authority makes her legally exposed.
If the transfers are ruled fraudulent — and Grace believes they will be — Margot's participation makes her liable." He folded his hands.
"There's something else."
I looked at him.
"One of the holding companies received a wire transfer from a real estate development firm in Scottsdale six weeks ago.
Four hundred thousand dollars.
That firm is currently under investigation by the Arizona Attorney General's office for contract fraud."
The room felt very still.
"Bennett took money from people being investigated for fraud," I said.
"He may not have known the full picture.
But the connection exists, and once Grace's filing triggers disclosure, the AG's office will see it." Uncle Richard's voice was careful.
"This may become larger than a divorce case."
I stood up slowly, one hand on the desk for balance.
I walked to the window.
The parking structure was lit now, amber lights in the early evening gray.
Bennett's car was gone.
"He left," I said.
"Yes."
"Where do you think he went?"
"My guess?
To Margot.
And then to his attorney." Uncle Richard came to stand beside me.
"He's going to try to move faster than we can.
He'll claim the transfers were legitimate business decisions.
He'll say the signatures were authorized verbally.
He'll find a way to make this look like a misunderstanding between spouses."
"Will it work?"
"Not with what Grace has." He put a hand briefly on my shoulder.
"But he'll try.
That's who he is."
My phone buzzed on the desk.
I crossed back and looked at the screen.
It was a text from a number I didn't recognize.
*You need to stop this now.
You don't know what Bennett is capable of.
For your baby's sake, drop it.*
I read it twice.
Then I held the phone out to Uncle Richard.
He read it.
His expression didn't change, but his hand went to his own phone immediately.
"I'm calling Grace," he said.
"Is that from Margot?" I asked.
"I don't know yet." He was already dialing.
"But it goes to Grace tonight.
And tomorrow it goes to the police."
I set my phone face-down on the desk.
Outside, the amber lights of the parking structure hummed steadily against the dark.
Somewhere in this city, Bennett was making calls.
Planning his next move.
May you like
He thought I was alone.
He had always thought I was alone.
