Chapter 2 - The Woman I Thought I KnewRachel’s footsteps came up the stairs.
“Daniel? Why is the mower sitting—”
She appeared in the doorway and stopped.
Her eyes moved from Lily’s tear-streaked face to her mother, then to me standing beside the open purse.
Finally, she saw the photographs in my hand.
Rachel turned white.
“What happened?”
“Ask your mother.”
Patricia folded her arms.
“Oh, don’t start.”
Rachel hurried to Lily.
“Honey?”
Lily flinched.
Not from Rachel.
From Patricia moving beside them.
That tiny reaction told Rachel everything.
She stood.
“What did you do to her?”
“Nothing.”
“You scared her.”
“She was snooping.”
Rachel stared at her mother.
“She’s nine.”
“She needs to learn boundaries.”
I held up the forged documents.
“Apparently so do you.”
Patricia looked at me with contempt.
“You’re making assumptions.”
“My signature is on paperwork I’ve never seen.”
Rachel took the pages.
I watched her expression change as she read.
“What is this?”
“You tell me.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
Patricia laughed.
“Of course you haven’t.”
Rachel looked at her.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“Why are there surveillance pictures of us in your purse?”
“Surveillance?”
I spread the photographs across Lily’s desk.
Rachel picked one up.
It showed her outside First Atlantic Bank.
She stared at it.
“That was three months ago.”
“I know,” Patricia said.
“You know?”
“You were making financial decisions without consulting the family.”
Rachel blinked.
“The family?”
“Yes.”
“I’m forty years old.”
Patricia’s jaw tightened.
“That doesn’t mean you suddenly understand money.”
Something about the sentence bothered me.
Rachel had been a financial controller before Lily was born.
She understood money better than anyone I knew.
Patricia knew that too.
So why say something so absurd?
I turned to Lily.
“What did you see?”
Patricia interrupted.
“This interrogation is ridiculous.”
“Be quiet.”
She stared at me.
I had never spoken to her that way.
Neither had Rachel.
Lily wiped her face.
“I came upstairs because Grandma told me to clean my room.”
“Okay.”
“She was at Mommy’s desk.”
Rachel glanced toward the small writing table she occasionally used when working from home.
“What was she doing?”
Lily hesitated.
Patricia said, “Careful.”
Rachel spun around.
“Mom, leave.”
Patricia’s mouth dropped open.
“What?”
“Get out of my daughter’s room.”
“This is my family too.”
“Not right now.”
“You’re choosing him over me?”
Rachel’s face hardened.
“I’m choosing my child.”
For once, Patricia had no response.
She walked into the hallway.
I followed and shut the bedroom door.
Lily immediately wrapped both arms around Rachel.
Rachel knelt and held her.
“You’re safe.”
“I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“For what?”
“I looked.”
“You’re not in trouble.”
“She was putting papers in your drawer.”
“What papers?”
“She had a blue folder. Then something fell out.”
Lily pointed toward the purse.
“The red thing.”
“The flash drive?”
She nodded.
“I picked it up because I thought it was one of Daddy’s computer things. Grandma grabbed me.”
My stomach twisted.
“What did she say?”
Lily lowered her voice.
“She said if I told anybody, you’d go to jail.”
Rachel’s arms tightened around her.
“Me?”
“She said you stole money.”
Rachel looked at me.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she asked Lily whether Patricia had hurt her anywhere.
“My wrist.”
A faint red mark circled it.
Rachel’s face changed.
I knew that expression.
It was the same look I’d seen when a drunk driver nearly hit Lily outside a grocery store three years earlier.
Pure parental fury.
“We’re calling the police,” she said.
From the hallway, Patricia shouted:
“You do that and your husband loses everything.”
I opened the door.
She was standing at the top of the stairs.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“Leave.”
“I’ll leave.”
She picked up her coat.
“But before you play the righteous husband, maybe you should ask Rachel why she secretly moved sixty thousand dollars.”
Rachel’s jaw dropped.
“I did not.”
Patricia smiled.
“You certainly did according to the bank records.”
“What records?”
“The ones the police will find.”
She walked downstairs.
I followed.
“So this is blackmail?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“A warning.”
She opened the front door.
“Your wife has been hiding things from you for years, Daniel.”
Rachel appeared behind me.
“You forged those documents.”
Patricia laughed.
“Prove it.”
Then she stepped outside.
I watched her walk toward her Mercedes.
She stopped before getting in.
“Oh, and Daniel?”
“What?”
“If you’re going to investigate people, start with your own brother.”
My stomach dropped.
“My brother?”
Patricia smiled.
“Ask Matthew who paid his mortgage last December.”
She drove away.
I stood in the driveway long after the car disappeared.
Matthew was my younger brother.
My business partner.
And the only person besides Rachel who had full access to our company accounts.
Behind me, Rachel whispered:
“What is she talking about?”
I didn’t know.
But suddenly the photographs, forged signatures and safe-deposit key felt like pieces of something far bigger than an angry grandmother’s secret.
I called the police.
Then I called my brother.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Hey, Danny.”
“Where are you?”
“Home. Why?”
“Did Patricia Monroe give you money?”
Silence.
“Matt?”
Another silence.
Then he whispered:
“Where did you hear that?”
My heart sank.
“How much?”
“Daniel—”
“How much?”
He exhaled.
“Sixty thousand dollars.”
Rachel covered her mouth.
I looked at Patricia’s purse sitting on the hallway table.
“What did you do for it?”
Matthew’s voice cracked.
“I didn’t know what she was planning.”
“What did you do?”
“She wanted access to the company records.”
My entire body went cold.
“And you gave it to her?”
“I thought she was helping us.”
“Helping us do what?”
Matthew went quiet.
May you like
Then he said:
“Hide the fact that someone’s been stealing from the company.”
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