Chương 4
A sound escaped Kylie, half laugh, half sob.
“Thank you.”
“I have a detailed list, though.”
“I’m sure.”
“Some items are legally complicated.”
Kylie leaned her head against the cold window.
At Nora’s apartment in Brooklyn, Kylie changed into an old college sweatshirt and sat at the kitchen counter while Nora made tea neither of them drank. Nora’s husband, Caleb, had taken their two children to his mother’s for the night after Kylie called.
The apartment felt strangely vacant without the children. A toy fire truck lay under the table. Someone had left a purple crayon on the radiator.
Kylie’s phone displayed nineteen missed calls.
Nine from Hunter.
Three from Elaine.
Two from Richard.
One from Celia Park.
Four from Isabelle.
There was also a message from Kylie’s attorney, Mara Velez.
The temporary asset-preservation order has been entered. Do not engage on financial matters tonight. Save all communications. Call me before 8:00 a.m.
Kylie placed the phone facedown.
Nora set a mug in front of her.
“Did Dad call?”
“Seven times.”
“You didn’t answer?”
“I know what he’ll say.”
Nora sat across from her. “Do you?”
“He’ll say he warned me.”
“No. He’ll ask whether you’re safe, then pretend he doesn’t want to have Hunter killed.”
“Dad doesn’t pretend well.”
“That’s true.”
Kylie wrapped both hands around the mug.
Her father’s disapproval had complicated the marriage from the beginning. Arthur Mercer had built his investment firm from a regional insurance business inherited from his own father. He liked durable companies, conservative debt, and people who answered questions without performing confidence.
Hunter performed confidence beautifully.
For years, Arthur kept Northline at a distance. Hunter called it prejudice. Kylie called it caution when speaking to Hunter and stubbornness when speaking to her father. Eventually Arthur’s investment committee approved the ten-million-dollar commitment after Northline secured two major contracts and agreed to financial controls.
Hunter believed he had won.
Kylie suspected he believed he had won her too.
Her phone vibrated against the counter.
Hunter.
Nora watched it.
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
The call ended.
A message appeared.
Please come home. We can fix this.
Kylie stared at it.
Another followed.
Isabelle is not what you think.
Then:
Your father will destroy eighty-three jobs to punish me.
Kylie read that one twice.
Hunter knew where to press. He knew she had visited Northline’s office and met employees whose health insurance depended on the company. He knew she remembered names. Carmen in payroll with twin sons. Luis, the systems engineer who brought homemade cookies to investor meetings. Priya, six months from vesting her options.
She had canceled money intended for Hunter’s company.
She had not canceled their rent, salaries, or medical bills. Still, the consequences would spread.
Nora leaned across the counter and read the screen.
“That is disgusting.”
“It’s also not entirely wrong.”
“Yes, it is.”
“The company has employees.”
“So did every corrupt bank.”
“Hunter isn’t a corrupt bank.”
“No. He’s one man with the emotional regulation of a raccoon trapped in a garage.”
Kylie looked down at the tea.
Nora softened.
“You are not responsible for funding him because other people work there.”
“I supported the investment.”
“Before you knew he forged your signature.”
“I introduced him to Dad’s team.”
“You were his wife.”
“I vouched for him.”
Nora pulled the purple crayon from the radiator and rolled it beneath her palm.
“You loved him.”
Kylie hated the sentence because it sounded like forgiveness.
She pushed the tea away.
“At some point love becomes negligence.”
“Not the first time someone lies to you.”
“What about the tenth?”
“Did you know it was the tenth?”
Kylie said nothing.
There had been other moments. A hotel charge in Chicago when Hunter claimed he stayed with a colleague. A lipstick mark he blamed on a greeting at a fundraiser. Isabelle becoming defensive when Kylie teased her about never liking Hunter’s friends. Hunter changing his phone passcode. Hunter accusing Kylie of invading his privacy before she had even asked to see the phone.
Each incident had been small enough to survive alone.
Together they had formed a structure she refused to enter.
At eleven-thirty, Hunter called again.
This time Kylie answered.
Nora stood immediately.
Kylie lifted a hand, asking her to remain quiet.
Hunter’s breathing came through the phone before his voice.
“Where are you?”
“I’m safe.”
“Are you at Nora’s?”
“I said I’m safe.”
“You shouldn’t have left like that.”
Kylie closed her eyes.
Even now, he could arrange the grammar so that she became the person who had done something.
“What happened after I left?”
“Everyone left.”
“Isabelle?”
A pause.
“Her brother picked her up.”
“Did she tell you to say that?”
“No.”
“Are you with her?”
“No.”
Kylie believed him. His voice lacked the guarded softness he used when lying from a place where someone else might hear.
Hunter continued. “Celia called an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning.”
“That seems appropriate.”
“They suspended my access to the accounts.”
“Also appropriate.”
“Stop talking to me like I’m a criminal.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I signed a loan authorization after you told me we could use the house if Northline needed temporary liquidity.”
“I said we could discuss it.”
“You approved the concept.”
“Not the loan. Not the amount. Not the false email address.”
He exhaled sharply.
“That email was a clerical error.”
“You registered it.”
No answer.
Kylie had found the registration receipt in an archived folder linked to Hunter’s personal cloud account. The account had synchronized to an old tablet they shared at the Connecticut house. He had forgotten the tablet because its screen was cracked.
For once, technology had not discovered the truth elegantly. Kylie found it because she wanted a recipe from an app that no longer existed on her new phone.
She had opened the old tablet at the kitchen counter while Hunter showered upstairs.
A notification appeared from Isabelle.
I can’t keep pretending this baby is no one’s.
Kylie clicked it.
May you like
That choice still embarrassed her.
People liked to describe discovery as instinct, but hers began with curiosity and a password she knew because Hunter used the same number for their alarm system.
