Chapter 4 - What Vanessa Decided
The phone buzzed again in her hand.
"Answer it," I said.
She stared at me. "What?"
"Answer it. Put it on speaker. Don't tell him I'm standing here."
Derek said nothing. He just watched her.
Her thumb hovered. Then she took the call and set the phone on the edge of the bed.
"Where are you?" Grant's voice filled the little room. Harder than it had been with me. The managing tone was gone.
"The hospital," Vanessa said. Her voice came out steadier than I expected. "With Derek."
"Is she still there?"
A beat. "No."
"Good. Listen to me carefully. Derek has an envelope. I need it back in your hands before she gets a lawyer near it. Tell him it's for the insurance claim, tell him whatever you have to. Just get those papers."
Derek's jaw went tight. He didn't make a sound.
"Grant," Vanessa said slowly. "She already saw them."
The line went silent for four seconds.
"How much did she see?"
"All of it. The statements. The transfer. The email to Denver."
"That email was — Vanessa, that was confidential. How did Derek even get his hands on it?"
"It was in my bag. He found it."
"You kept a printout of that email in your bag? I told you to delete everything. Months ago I told you—"
"I know what you told me."
"This is a catastrophe. Do you have any idea what she can do with that email alone?" He stopped. When he came back his voice had dropped low and even. "Okay. Here's what we do. You tell Derek you're sorry. You go home tonight. Tomorrow morning you're at the office and we pull the filing before anyone else touches it. The transfer isn't registered yet. We can still walk this all the way back."
"Grant." Her voice was quiet. "I'm not doing that."
Silence.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not going to the office. I'm not pulling anything. And I'm not lying to Derek's face again."
"Vanessa." His voice went slower. Colder. "Think very hard about your next sentence. You signed every disbursement. Your name is on every wire. If this turns into a legal case, you are not a witness. You are a defendant. I will personally make sure of it."
Derek's hand moved to her arm. She looked down at it.
"Then I'm a defendant," she said. "But I'm done."
The call ended.
For a moment nobody spoke. Then Vanessa set the phone face-down on the blanket by Derek's leg and looked at her husband, not at me.
"I'm sorry," she said. It came out small. Nothing like the woman who'd screamed at me in the hall an hour before.
Derek looked at her a long time. "I know," he said finally.
Not forgiveness. But not a door slamming, either.
I picked the envelope up off the chair.
"I'm going to need a formal statement from you," I told Vanessa. "Not today. But soon. Everything Grant told you — the transfers, the timeline, the divorce. All of it."
She nodded once.
"One more thing." I held up the share transfer. "Who drew this up? Grant's name isn't on it as the instructing client. There's a firm listed — Callahan and Reed. You know them?"
She hesitated. Then: "Lucille brought them to Grant. Two years ago, about. They handle her property holdings."
Lucille's name on the director's line. Lucille's law firm on the transfer. Four hundred thousand dollars flowing into Lucille's company.
This hadn't started eighteen months ago when that account opened. It had started two years ago — right around the time Lucille moved into our house.
I stopped at the door with my hand on the frame.
"Derek. Thank you. I mean that."
He gave a small nod. His face was wrecked and sad and doing that thing where a man recalculates his entire life in real time. I knew the look. I was wearing it too.
I drove home in silence. Grant's car was in the driveway. Every light in the house was burning.
I sat in my car for two minutes. Then I called my father.
"Papa," I said when he picked up. "I need the name of the best business litigation attorney in Akron. Tonight, if you can."
A pause. "Diane. What did he do?"
"He tried to take all of it," I said. "But he made one mistake."
"What mistake?"
"He didn't finish before I found out."
I heard him breathe out, long and slow. "I'll make calls. Do not go into that house alone."
May you like
"I won't," I said.
But I was already looking at the front door. And the light in the upstairs window — Grant's study — had just gone out.
