Chapter 5
The hospital had my alibi.
I just couldn't get my hands on it.
I stood at the records desk of Northlake Regional Medical Center.
The clerk behind the glass was Nora Bell.
She had knitted scarves for the Harbor House winter drive every December for the last four years.
She knew me.
She knew my coffee order.
Today, Nora Bell kept her eyes glued to her keyboard.
"I remember you bringing Maya in," Nora Bell said.
Her fingers stopped on the blank form.
"But Maya Ruiz is a minor. I can't release her emergency room records to you."
"I don't need her medical chart, Nora Bell," I said, keeping my voice steady. "I just need the visitor log and the lobby security footage from that night."
Nora Bell's eyes moved toward her supervisor's closed door.
"Security keeps footage for thirty days. A lawyer can send a preservation request."
Maya had burned her hand nineteen days ago.
I thanked her and walked out to the parking lot with nothing but a nine-day deadline.
Diane needed five thousand dollars before she could officially file the divorce petition, send a preservation request to the hospital, and begin obtaining the server logs.
I drove three blocks to the Northlake Community Bank.
The teller, a young man with a crooked nametag, swiped my debit card.
He tapped his keyboard, frowned, and swiped the card a second time.
"The household account is still open, Mrs. Monroe," the teller said, his voice dropping to a sympathetic murmur. "But the available balance is zero."
I gripped the edge of the laminate counter. "Zero?"
He turned the monitor slightly so I could see the screen. "The funds were transferred at eight-thirty this morning."
Eight-thirty.
Exactly thirty minutes before Graham stepped up to the wooden podium to tell the cameras how much he cared about my mental health.
He had emptied our joint savings while rehearsing his lines.
"What about my personal checking?" I asked.
The teller clicked his mouse. "Your personal account has a balance of forty-two dollars and sixteen cents."
He printed the balance slip and pushed it across the counter.
I stared at him.
Twenty years.
I had worked sixty-hour weeks, written grants, painted classrooms, and mentored hundreds of kids.
After twenty years of marriage and shared labor, my husband had reduced my entire life to forty-two dollars.
"Thank you," I said softly.
I walked out of the bank and into the bright afternoon sun.
Directly across the street was the town square.
A crowd of about fifty people was gathered on the grass.
I recognized the blue and white banners immediately.
It was the Harbor House Annual Honor Wall unveiling.
I had ordered those banners.
I had designed the corkboards.
I was supposed to be the one standing on the riser, handing out certificates to the volunteers.
Instead, Graham was standing at the microphone.
His navy blazer hung open over a wrinkled white shirt, his tie loosened just enough to make him look exhausted.
From across the street, he looked like a man carrying the whole town on his back.
Iris Vale stood right beside him, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.
"Today, we honor bravery," Graham's voice echoed across the street through the portable PA system. "We honor those who have the courage to speak up, even when the person hurting them is in a position of power."
The crowd clapped.
I saw several of my former volunteers nodding in solemn agreement.
Graham turned and pinned a new photograph to the center of the Honor Wall.
It was a picture of Iris.
He was standing on the platform I had built, using my disgrace to raise money.
A woman near the back of the crowd turned around.
It was Sarah, a PTA mother I had helped through a messy custody battle just last year.
When she saw me standing by the sidewalk, her face tightened.
She immediately pulled her phone out, whispering to the woman next to her.
I turned around, walked to my old Volvo, and slid into the driver's seat.
My phone vibrated against the passenger seat.
It was Diane.
"Leah," my lawyer's voice came through the speaker, crisp and urgent. "Where are you?"
"Sitting in my car," I said, staring at the balance slip in my hand. "Diane, Graham emptied the accounts. I don't have the retainer."
"Don't worry about the retainer right now," Diane said. "Graham's attorney just called me. They're offering a quiet settlement. You sign a non-disclosure agreement, walk away from Harbor House permanently, and Graham won't report the missing scholarship money to the police."
My fingers locked around the steering wheel. "Report me? For what?"
"Graham's attorney says the LM approval came from your login," Diane said quietly. "He claims the signature beside it was copied from one of his old grant forms. If you refuse the settlement, they'll report suspected embezzlement tomorrow morning."
I looked out the windshield at the town square.
Until that moment, I had believed someone used my initials to hide Graham's payment.
Now Graham was claiming I had forged his name.
The thin balance slip stuck to my damp palm.
$42.16.
My prescription refill cost thirty-eight dollars.
That left four dollars and sixteen cents for everything else.
At nine tomorrow morning, my husband would take that authorization to the police.
I had forty-two dollars, no lawyer, and nine days before the hospital erased the only video proving I was across town when my office computer approved the payment.