Chương 5
“How do you know?”
“I saw him carry three archive boxes into the conference room.”
“Maybe he’s moving them.”
“He put them through the shredder.”
I felt a cold line move down my back.
“Which files?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“Priya, don’t confront him.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
A door slammed faintly on her end.
She stopped speaking.
“Priya?”
Nothing.
Then, very quietly, she said, “I have to go.”
The call ended.
Arthur was dialing someone before I lowered the phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Our litigation partner.”
“For what?”
“To make sure Mark receives a preservation notice before he turns every relevant document in that office into confetti.”
I looked at the phone in my hand.
The old version of me would have called Mark.
I would have demanded an explanation.
I would have given him the warning that something had changed.
Instead, I opened our family banking app.
Arthur glanced at me.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking.”
“That’s allowed.”
The joint checking account loaded.
I expected to see the same balance I had seen three days earlier.
I did not.
“Arthur.”
He came beside me.
There had been a transfer at 7:12 that morning.
Forty-eight thousand dollars.
The destination was an account I did not recognize.
“That’s almost everything liquid in checking.”
Arthur stared at the screen.
“Take a screenshot.”
I did.
Another transfer had been attempted from our joint savings account.
It showed as pending.
Seventy-five thousand dollars.
My hands started shaking.
“Can he do that?”
“If he’s an authorized joint owner, possibly.”
“That’s the girls’ school money.”
“Call the bank.”
I did.
The automated system asked me to verify my identity.
Then it played hold music for four minutes while I stood barefoot beside a couch that did not belong to me.
When a representative finally answered, I explained that I was disputing and attempting to stop a pending transfer from a jointly held account.
The representative asked questions, transferred me to fraud prevention, and asked more questions.
Nothing happened dramatically.
No alarm sounded.
No benevolent banker announced that justice had prevailed.
But after fourteen minutes, the second transfer was placed under review.
The first had already completed.
“Can you reverse it?”
The fraud specialist would not promise.
She told me the bank would investigate.
She also told me that access restrictions on a joint account involved rules that depended on ownership and transaction circumstances.
I wrote down the case number.
When I hung up, I wanted to throw the phone.
Instead, I set it carefully on the coffee table.
Arthur was watching me.
“I almost called him,” I said.
“I know.”
“I wanted to scream at him.”
“I know.”
“And then I pictured Emma looking at me last night.”
Arthur said nothing.
I sat down.
“For twelve years, every time Mark crossed a line, I told him exactly how to fix it.”
My throat hurt.
“I taught him how to apologize to me.”
Arthur’s face stayed still.
“I don’t want to teach him anymore.”
From the kitchen, Lily shouted, “Mom, Emma says I can’t put strawberry cream cheese on an everything bagel.”
“That sounds disgusting,” I called back.
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
Arthur looked toward the kitchen.
“That child may need legal representation.”
I laughed again.
It felt inappropriate and necessary.
Then someone knocked on the front door.
All the air left my lungs.
Arthur raised one hand.
“Stay here.”
He crossed the room and looked through the peephole.
His shoulders relaxed slightly.
“It’s not Mark.”
“Who is it?”
He opened the door.
Priya stood on the step with no coat, no purse, and a cardboard file box clutched against her chest.
Her hair was half loose from its clip.
She looked over her shoulder before stepping inside.
“I think I just got fired,” she said.
Arthur closed the door.
“What did you bring?”
Priya set the box on the floor.
“Copies.”
“Of what?”
She looked at me.
“Whatever Mark was trying to destroy.”
Priya kept one hand on the box as if someone might try to take it from her.
Arthur did not touch it.
“Before we open anything, tell me exactly where these came from.”
Priya pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“The conference room copier.”
“You copied documents Mark had already removed from storage?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he was shredding them.”
“That doesn’t answer why you decided to intervene.”
Priya’s eyes flicked toward me.
For the first time since she arrived, she looked embarrassed.
“Because I’ve been helping him.”
The room seemed to tilt without moving.
Arthur’s voice stayed level.
“Helping him do what?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“What did you know?”
Priya pressed both palms against the top of the box.
“I knew he was moving invoices around.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“He’d have vendors reissue invoices under different project numbers.”
Arthur took out his pen.
“Why?”
“He said it was cash-flow management.”
“And you believed him?”
“For a while.”
Her mouth twisted.
“No, that’s not entirely true.”
Arthur waited.
Priya looked at me.
“I chose to believe him.”
I sat down slowly.
“When did you stop?”
“About three months ago.”
“What changed?”
“He asked me to create a vendor profile for a company called Northline Consulting.”
Arthur wrote the name down.
“What does Northline do?”
“That was my question.”
“And?”
“He said owner representation and predevelopment consulting.”
“Who owns it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You created the account anyway.”
She nodded.
“I did.”
The shame in her face was not theatrical.
It was worse than that.
It looked practiced.
“How much money went to Northline?”
Arthur asked.
“Just over four hundred thousand dollars that I know of.”
I stared at her.
“From Mark’s firm?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Some reimbursements came through project advances.”
Arthur’s pen stopped.
“Vance?”
Priya nodded.
“Harbor Point is in the box.”
My phone vibrated again.
Nobody looked at it.
I did not either.
“What else is in there?”
I asked.
May you like
“Copies of payment requests, change-order drafts, email printouts, vendor setup forms.”
She swallowed.
