Chapter 7 - The Morning He Didn't Know
The lawyer's name was Nadine Pratt. Her office was on the fourth floor of the Braddock Building downtown, and she agreed to meet Marianne and me at seven-thirty, before her first client.
She had reading glasses shoved up into her hair and a yellow legal pad and the calm of a woman who has heard worse and won't insult you by pretending otherwise.
I laid it all out. The account. The transfers from our joint account. The Nevada shell. Sabrina's name on the paperwork. The prepaid phone. The nine-day window. Marianne added her eight months of documentation.
Nadine wrote for a long time without looking up. Then she put her pen down.
"Here's where you stand," she said. "The account in your name makes you, on paper, the primary holder of money that was pushed through a fraudulent structure. That's your exposure. The good news is you've got a clean trail showing you never touched it and never knew. The better news is you've handed me the scheme, the players, and the calendar."
"What happens to Ethan?"
"If financial crimes moves on this — and from what Marianne's already given them, they're ready — he's looking at wire fraud at a minimum. Probably more once they get into the servers." She looked straight at me. "This will not be quiet."
"I know."
"Your marriage is over."
"I know that too."
She nodded once, the way you nod at someone who doesn't need a pause.
"Now. The nine days," she said. "If they move that money before the warrant hits, recovery gets a lot harder. The investigators need what's on that phone this morning."
I slid my phone across the desk and she photographed each screenshot, one at a time.
"One more question," Nadine said. "Anyone in your life Ethan might call if he senses things shifting? Family, a friend — anyone he could lean on as a warning system?"
I thought of Beth. I thought of my mother, who still had dinner with Ethan's parents twice a year and called his mother "such a lovely woman."
"My mom," I said. "She doesn't know any of this."
"Call her today. Before anything moves. She needs to hear it from you, not from a badge at her door."
I drove home. Ethan's car was still in the driveway. He was in the kitchen in his work clothes, pouring coffee.
"You're up early," he said.
"Couldn't sleep. Went for a drive."
He handed me a mug. "You okay?"
"Just restless." I wrapped both hands around it. "Long day today?"
"Packed. Might be late." He grabbed his keys. "Don't wait up."
He kissed my cheek, walked out the front door, backed down the driveway, and drove off.
I stood at the window until his car turned the corner.
Then I called my mother.
May you like
She answered on the second ring, warm and unhurried, the voice of a woman who had no idea the floor was about to move.
"Mom," I said. "I need to tell you something. Sit down first."
