Chương 4
For several minutes I lay still, listening.
A cabinet opened.
Then another.
I got out of bed and found Scott in his office with the desk lamp on.
He was feeding papers through the shredder.
The machine made a grinding sound that seemed impossibly loud in the sleeping house.
He looked up.
Neither of us spoke.
A strip of paper disappeared between the blades.
I saw the logo of our brokerage firm before it vanished.
“Stop.”
He reached for another page.
I crossed the room and unplugged the shredder.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Cleaning out old records.”
“At two in the morning?”
“They’re duplicates.”
I looked at the wastebasket beneath the machine.
It was half full of narrow white strips.
“Move.”
“Claire.”
“Move.”
For once, he did.
I pulled the basket out and carried it downstairs.
He followed me.
“You cannot seriously be planning to tape that garbage together.”
“I don’t know.”
“Those are obsolete statements.”
“Then you shouldn’t care.”
His hand came down on the kitchen island.
“Because this is insane.”
I set the basket beside my purse.
“You forged my signature.”
His face went rigid.
“I did not forge anything.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked toward the dark staircase.
“Jenna?”
He hesitated.
It was not long, but it was long enough to frighten me.
“Don’t drag her into this.”
“She told me you said I signed the lease.”
“She misunderstood.”
“Did she fill out the application?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“This conversation is over.”
He started back upstairs.
“Why was my driver’s license attached?”
He stopped.
I had not told him that part.
His shoulders remained turned away.
I waited.
“We keep copies of everything,” he said.
We did.
In a locked file cabinet in his office.
A cabinet whose key hung on Scott’s key ring.
He went upstairs.
This time I heard the guest-room lock click.
At six, I took the basket of shredded paper to work.
Daniel arrived while I was spreading strips across the conference-room table before anyone else came in.
He stood in the doorway eating a blueberry muffin.
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Then don’t.”
He chewed thoughtfully.
“That has never stopped me before.”
I handed him two strips.
“Can you tell what these are?”
He put down the muffin.
Daniel had worked in audit before joining our firm, and unlike me, he enjoyed puzzles that made other people want to throw furniture.
He fitted one strip beside another.
“Investment statement.”
“I know.”
“These dates matter?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He looked at me.
That answer changed his expression.
“Do you want help?”
The simple question nearly undid me.
Not because I was helpless.
Because no one had asked it in a long time without first deciding what kind of help I should accept.
“Yes.”
We spent forty minutes sorting pieces by paper color, font, and account header.
Most were old statements.
Some were tax summaries.
Then Daniel found three strips from a document dated eleven days earlier.
He aligned them carefully.
My name appeared beside Scott’s.
Underneath was the partial name of a financial institution I did not recognize.
The visible line read AUTHORIZATION TO DISTRIBUTE.
My hands went cold.
“Distribution from what?” I asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“We don’t have enough.”
I photographed the strips.
At nine, I called Maya.
She asked me to send the images and told me not to confront Scott about them.
Then she asked a question that left me staring through my office window at the parking lot.
“Claire, do you know the current balance of every retirement and investment account you own jointly or individually?”
“No.”
“Find out.”
I logged into the brokerage account Scott and I had used for years.
The password failed.
I tried again.
Failed.
On the third attempt, the site locked me out.
I called customer service.
After twenty minutes of verification, the representative told me my online access had been reset twelve days earlier.
“By whom?”
“We can’t determine intent, ma’am.”
“I didn’t ask about intent.”
A pause.
“The request was authenticated through the primary profile.”
“Whose phone number is on that profile?”
Another hold.
When the representative returned, she read the final four digits.
They were Scott’s.
My stomach tightened.
“Was any money moved?”
“I need to transfer you to our account-security department.”
The security specialist was slower and more cautious.
Yes, there had been recent activity.
No, she could not discuss all details until identity verification was complete.
Yes, my name remained associated with the account.
Then she said something that made the room seem to tilt slightly.
“A distribution request is currently pending.”
“How much?”
“I can’t release that until we finish verification.”
“When does it process?”
“Friday.”
Scott’s mother’s birthday.
Three days away.
I looked at his text from the previous morning reminding me to buy her gift.
While I had been worrying about what to send a woman who already owned everything she needed, my husband had been preparing to move something else.
“Can you freeze it?”
“There’s a process for disputing authorization.”
“Start it.”
The specialist began reading disclosures.
I opened my calendar and wrote down every word that mattered.
For the first time since the block party, anger moved aside and made room for something cleaner.
Scott had not simply planned for me to leave.
He had planned for my leaving to become a fact before I had enough information to resist it.
That afternoon, Maya called me back.
“The brokerage confirmed they received your fraud inquiry,” she said.
“Good.”
“There’s something else.”
Her voice had the controlled tone people used when they were trying not to frighten you before they knew whether fear was justified.
“The apartment lease lists an emergency contact.”
I opened the copy on my desk.
I had overlooked the section completely.
The name was Rebecca Nolan.
My sister.
My chest tightened.
“I never gave them her information.”
“I assumed not.”
Maya paused.
“Have you spoken to Rebecca?”
“Not yet.”
“Call her.”
May you like
I did.
Rebecca answered on the fourth ring with the sound of traffic behind her.
