Chapter 2

I had spent enough years restoring old houses to know that numbers told stories long before people did.

When a client said a foundation repair would cost ten thousand dollars, I knew what questions to ask. When a contractor offered an estimate that sounded too smooth, I could tell whether he was hiding labor, materials, or panic.

Ethan had forgotten that.

He had forgotten that I kept every invoice connected to Bay Road.

I had paid the larger part of our down payment with savings from my design work and a modest trust my father had left me.

I knew the original mortgage balance.

I knew the roof repair estimate.

I knew exactly how much the drainage work behind the garage would cost.

Our existing loan balance was just under four hundred eighty thousand dollars.

The refinance Ethan wanted was for seven hundred twenty thousand.

That was not a lower payment. It was not a harmless adjustment.

It was two hundred forty thousand dollars pulled out of our home.

Ethan came back at lunchtime to pick up his laptop. I had the papers spread across the dining table.

"Why is the loan this large?" I asked.

He glanced at the number, then sat across from me as if we were discussing a vacation budget.

"The roof, the drainage, the backyard fence. Maybe the kitchen eventually. It's smart to keep some cash available."

"Two hundred forty thousand dollars?"

"Not all of it has to be spent." He reached for my hand. "Nora, the house has gone up in value. We should use that."

I turned to the distribution page.

Most of the cash was designated to one person.

Grant Miller.

Twenty-one thousand? No. Two hundred eighteen thousand dollars.

"Why does Grant get this?" I asked.

The warmth in Ethan's face changed by half a degree. Most people would not have noticed. I had spent ten years noticing the moments just before he decided which version of the truth to use.

"He helped us during the renovation," he said.

"He didn't."

"He helped me."

"With what?"

Ethan leaned back. "It was a private loan. I didn't want to worry you."

That sentence might have worked on me a year earlier. Maybe six months earlier. It had the right shape:

protective husband, complicated numbers, tired wife. But I knew our renovation costs. Grant had not loaned us two hundred eighteen thousand dollars. And if he had loaned Ethan that much,

it was not for a roof I had personally designed and priced.

After Ethan left, I went upstairs.

The blue room smelled of fresh paint. Beneath the unopened bed frame, I found a child's drawing folded in half. A man stood between a woman with long brown hair and a little girl holding a yellow key.

Above the man's head, in careful purple crayon, was one word.

Daddy.

I folded the picture and put it in my bag.

Then I opened a new encrypted folder on my laptop.

I named it: Before He Knows.