Chapter 5
Daniel followed through on his threat the next morning.
I bought milk, bread, eggs, and a bag of coffee at the grocery store near the lake house. The cashier ran our family credit card.
The machine beeped twice.
DECLINED.
She tried again with the same result.
“Do you have another card?”
Four people were waiting behind me.
“Give me a second.”
I opened my banking app. Daniel hadn’t touched the money in our joint checking account. He had simply removed my access to the credit card.
The company hadn’t done this.
Daniel had.
I paid with the digital debit card attached to my new account and left the coffee behind. By the time I reached the parking lot, a notification appeared on my phone.
Forty-three dollars.
I had a little over eleven hundred left.
The heat, electricity, gas, and food all had to come out of that account. Daniel knew how little I made at the nonprofit. He also knew I had transferred the entire sixty-four hundred dollars from my mother’s watch into the emergency fund.
He wasn’t trying to reduce our expenses.
He wanted me to understand what refusing him would cost.
In the car, I noticed the mailbox key in my wallet. Two days of mail were still at the house, including our quarterly bank statement and the official paperwork from the pawnshop.
I wasn’t going to let Daniel decide which documents belonged to me.
Forty minutes later, I pulled into our driveway.
A silver sports car was parked outside. I recognized it from the company Christmas party.
It belonged to Celeste.
Daniel hadn’t changed the front-door code yet. When I stepped inside, I heard someone moving around in the kitchen.
Daniel wasn’t there.
Celeste sat alone at the island with coffee and a stack of documents in front of her.
She wore a cream-colored suit, and her blazer was draped over the back of the chair where I usually sat.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
She sounded as if I had walked into her home.
“I’m picking up my mail.”
Celeste closed the file in front of her. “Daniel is meeting with a supplier. He asked me to organize the loan documents.”
“Including the loan against my house?”
“Including every option that might keep the company alive.”
I collected the mail from the entry table and put it in my bag. The red folder lay nearby, with the lake house appraisal sticking out of the top.
I reached for it.
Celeste placed her hand over the folder first.
“These are company documents.”
“The top page is an appraisal of my property.”
For a moment, neither of us moved.
That was when I noticed the watch on her left wrist.
It had a gold band, a square face, and a narrow line of diamonds around the edge. The protective film was still attached to the inside of the clasp.
“Is that new?” I asked.
Celeste glanced down at it.
“Call it a work bonus.”
“I thought the company was about to collapse.”
Her hand left the folder. Her smile faded.
“Daniel is under enough pressure already. You don’t need to turn everything into another reason to doubt him.”
“Did he ask you to tell me that?”
“He didn’t have to.” She lifted her coffee. “I can see who’s trying to help him and who’s only protecting herself.”
I took the red folder.
This time, Celeste didn’t stop me.
As I reached the door, she said, “Daniel thought you’d be back last night.”
I paused with my hand on the knob.
“Then he needs to get to know me better.”
Back at the lake house, I spread the mail and documents across the kitchen table.
Beneath the appraisal was a draft loan application. Under that, I found a folded white receipt.
The Harrington Jewelers logo was printed across the top.
18-karat women’s watch with diamond bezel.
Total: $7,900.
The purchaser was Daniel Whitman.
The pickup name was Celeste Moore.
The purchase date was yesterday.
On the same day I pawned my mother’s watch and transferred sixty-four hundred dollars to Daniel, he had bought Celeste a new one.
His company supposedly couldn’t afford employee health insurance, but it could afford a seventy-nine-hundred-dollar “work bonus.”
I photographed the receipt, the property appraisal, and the loan application.
Then I sent Daniel a message.
I’ve thought about it. I’ll sign the lake house loan documents on Friday.
His reply came almost immediately.
I knew you would do the right thing.
I didn’t answer.
Instead, I opened my laptop and found a family-law firm that had never represented Daniel or his company. I attached the photographs to a consultation request.
The attorney’s name was Rachel Kim.
In the subject line, I wrote:
My husband says we’re broke. His mistress is wearing my money.