Chapter 2

"I know," I said, looking at Lisette. "I've got to gather evidence."

Lisette looked at me for a moment.

"You're way calmer than I thought you'd be," she said.

"I'm not calm at all," I replied. I took a sip of my coffee. "I'm just enduring it."

*****

That night, when I got home, Andrew was already asleep.

I lay down next to him and stared up at the ceiling.

The next day, he left for work and I took the day off.

I logged into his laptop.

I knew his password. We'd been married for years and he'd never changed it.

I opened up his messaging app on the desktop.

The message history was wiped clean but he hadn't cleared his email.

I pulled up his email and typed "Joanne" into the search bar.

Thirty-seven emails showed up.

The earliest one was from two years and three months ago. That was right after Joanne had left my company.

[Mr. Snyder, thanks for helping me land this job. I owe you dinner,] she wrote.

But as I kept reading, the content of their emails gradually changed.

She started out calling him "Andrew," then switched to a more familiar "Darling." Before long, she was calling him "Hubby."

I read through each email quickly.

It wasn't that I didn't care.

If I took my time, I was afraid I'd end up breaking something.

The fifteenth email was dated a year and a half ago. It was from Joanne.

She wrote: [Hubby, I went to see that apartment at Westwood Condo, 15th floor. The view is incredible. Are you really giving it to me? I'm so excited!]

Andrew replied, [Of course it's real. You're the most important person to me.]

I scoffed. The most important person to him?

When my parents passed away, they left me all their savings so I could pay the down payment for that place.

I spent three years paying the rest off.

Only my name was on the deed.

Yet, he handed over my house to her, telling her he bought it just for her.

When I saw that, I slammed the laptop shut.

I stood up and walked out onto the balcony, taking several deep breaths.

Then I grabbed my phone and called Lisette.

"Lisette," I said.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Two years and three months," I replied.

There was a pause on the other end.

"You found out?" she asked.

"Yeah. He gave my house to his mistress, telling her he bought it for her," I said.

Lisette cursed, "Nicole, listen to me. Don't let him know you're onto him."

"I know."

"You owned that place before you got married, and your name's on the deed. Legally, he can't give it away to someone else. It's yours."

"I know."

"What you need to do now is—"

"I know." I looked out at the sky beyond the balcony. "I'm already doing it."

*****

For the next two weeks, I put on my best act.

I went to work as usual, cooked dinner like everything was normal, and chatted with Andrew just like always.

"Did you have to work late today? You must be exhausted," I said.

"Yeah, the project's on a tight deadline," he replied.

He sat on the couch, scrolling through his phone, and every so often he'd look up and shoot me a smile.

I smiled back.

Secretly, I was doing three things.

First, I was putting together all the evidence.

I grabbed screenshots of every email and collected three years' worth of bank statements.

I noticed something pretty interesting.

Every month on the fifth, Andrew would transfer 1500 dollars to me as "rent."

But that money was coming out of our joint account.

So basically, he was using our money to pay me "rent," pretending the place was being rented out.

But in reality, Joanne was the one living there.

Three years of "rent" payments was 54 thousand dollars.

That was 54 thousand dollars of my own money, just making a round trip back to my account.

He didn't even use a dime of his own.

The second thing I did was investigating Joanne.

I asked Lisette to help me look into her.

It turned out that Joanne was working at a company run by one of Andrew's "friends," making 2 thousand dollars a month.

But on her social media, she was flaunting Gucci bags, trips to Freeburg, vacations in Hodrary, and dinners at Michelin-starred restaurants.

Every post was way out of her league for someone making just 2 thousand a month.

One post in particular caught my eye.

It was from three months ago and was a design mockup for a home makeover.

The caption read: [Renovations are about to start on my new place. We changed the design eight times, but it's finally locked in. Hubby said there's no budget, that I can do whatever I want. Seriously, I feel so loved!]

Someone in the comments asked, [How big is the place?]

She replied, [1,400 square feet.]

Well, the apartment at Westwood Condo was 1430 square feet.

The third thing I did was to not do anything.

Yup, I deliberately sat on the knowledge that Andrew was cheating and did nothing.

Lisette asked one day, "When are you going to confront them?"

I said, "No rush."

"No rush?" she repeated.

"She's renovating," I replied.

Lisette paused, looking a bit thrown off. "What do you mean?"

I looked at her. "Joanne's pouring her money into fixing up my place. Once the renovations are done, all those upgrades are part of the house. She can't walk away with them."

Lisette's eyes sparkled as she caught on. "Nicole, you're..."

"I'm waiting until she's finished with the renovations," I smiled. "Then, I'll take it back."

I had been keeping an eye on the renovations the whole time.

It was super easy to do that.

Joanne's posts were like a real-time broadcast of everything.