Chapter 4 - The AccountThe account contained $187,412.63.
I stared at the number until it stopped looking real.
Three years of deposits.
Transfers ranging from $2,000 to $19,000.
Some irregular.
Some suspiciously timed.
Julian’s forensic accountant, Amanda Cho, joined us that afternoon.
She spread printed statements across the conference table.
“Several transfers originated from an LLC called Northstar Hospitality Consulting.”
I frowned.
“Never heard of it.”
“Your husband is the sole member.”
My stomach turned.
Ethan had an LLC.
A company.
An entire financial life I knew nothing about.
“What does it do?”
“We’re still determining that.”
Amanda pointed to several transactions.
“This one came from Grant Bennett.”
Ethan’s brother.
“Twenty-four thousand dollars.”
Then another.
“Thirty-one thousand.”
Another.
“Eighteen five.”
I looked at Julian.
“The sports bar.”
“Possibly.”
Amanda nodded.
“Your forty-two thousand may not have been loaned to Grant in the way Ethan represented.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the money may have been routed.”
My mouth went dry.
“Routed where?”
“Potentially back to your husband through this LLC.”
I couldn’t speak.
The money Ethan told me had gone to help his struggling brother may have ended up under Ethan’s control.
Julian watched me carefully.
“We don’t know enough yet.”
But something inside me already did.
I remembered the night I confronted Ethan.
He had sat on our bed, shoulders slumped.
Grant needs help.
I should have talked to you first.
I screwed up.
I believed him because the lie contained exactly what I wanted to hear: remorse.
“What else?” I asked.
Amanda continued.
Northstar paid for hotel stays.
Restaurants.
A watch costing $8,600.
And repeated payments to a condominium complex downtown.
I felt colder with every page.
“Does he own another property?”
“We’re checking.”
I thought of every time Ethan complained that my business took too much of my attention.
Every time he told me we needed to cut expenses.
Every time he made me feel selfish for buying something for myself.
Meanwhile, he had nearly two hundred thousand dollars hidden.
“Was there another woman?” I asked.
Neither Julian nor Amanda answered immediately.
That silence was answer enough.
“We don’t have evidence of that,” Julian said.
“Yet.”
“Correct.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
Below us, Chicago moved normally.
People crossed streets.
Buses stopped.
Taxis honked.
My marriage had just changed shape, but the world didn’t notice.
“I feel stupid.”
Amanda spoke gently.
“You’re not.”
I looked at her.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I’m saying it because financial concealment is designed to be concealed.”
That helped more than I expected.
My phone buzzed.
Ethan.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw the preview.
I need to explain Northstar before your lawyer poisons you against me.
I showed Julian.
“Don’t answer yet.”
An hour later, Ethan sent a four-page email.
Northstar, according to him, was a consulting company he created with Grant to rebuild money lost in the restaurant failure.
He claimed he hadn’t told me because he was embarrassed.
The money was supposedly business income.
The condo payments were allegedly for short-term client accommodations.
The watch was a networking expense.
Everything had an explanation.
That was Ethan’s talent.
He could build a bridge out of explanations so quickly that you forgot to ask why there was a canyon underneath.
Amanda requested business records.
Ethan resisted.
Marcus Bell called them irrelevant.
Julian filed the appropriate requests.
The divorce stopped being emotional and became procedural.
That almost made it easier.
For two weeks, I worked.
I moved into a furnished rental downtown.
I resumed client meetings.
I visited job sites.
At first, everyone at Bennett Design Group tiptoed around me.
Then my operations manager, Denise, finally walked into my office and said, “Can we stop pretending you’re dying?”
I looked up.
“What?”
“You’re getting divorced. It sucks. But you’re not dying.”
I laughed for the first time that week.
“Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.”
Denise dropped a folder on my desk.
“We have a potential hotel contract.”
I stared at it.
“Where?”
“Nashville.”
Six months earlier, I would have rejected it immediately.
Ethan hated when I traveled.
Now I opened the folder.
“How big?”
“Forty-two rooms, lobby, restaurant, rooftop.”
I smiled.
“Schedule the meeting.”
Life began expanding in places I hadn’t realized had shrunk.
Then Lorraine appeared at my office.
No appointment.
No warning.
Denise called from reception.
“Your mother-in-law is here.”
“Soon to be former.”
“She says it’s urgent.”
Of course she did.
I let her in.
Lorraine walked into my office wearing pearls and a camel coat.
She looked around at samples, drawings, and project photographs.
“You changed this place.”
“I renovated last year.”
“I never came.”
“No.”
She sat without being invited.
“I want to talk woman to woman.”
“That would be new.”
Her lips tightened.
“I deserved that.”
That surprised me.
Lorraine folded her hands.
“Ethan is not handling this well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He hardly sleeps.”
I waited.
“He says you won’t speak to him.”
“Our attorneys communicate.”
“You were married six years.”
“And during those six years, you repeatedly encouraged him to treat me as temporary.”
Her face changed.
“I did no such thing.”
“You told me I was lucky Ethan married someone so career-focused.”
“I was trying to help.”
“You rearranged my kitchen because you said Ethan deserved a home that functioned properly.”
“I have standards.”
“So do I.”
She looked toward the window.
For the first time, Lorraine seemed older than sixty-three.
Then she said something unexpected.
“I told him not to open Northstar.”
I froze.
“You knew?”
Her eyes returned to mine.
“He said Grant had an opportunity.”
“You knew about the account?”
“No.”
“Did you know he took our savings?”
“No.”
I believed that part.
Lorraine loved Ethan blindly, but she wasn’t a convincing liar when surprised.
“What was Northstar really for?”
“I don’t know. Some investment arrangement.”
“With Grant?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
She hesitated.
That was enough.
“What?”
“There was a woman involved in the early paperwork.”
My chest tightened.
“Who?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember everything.”
“I genuinely don’t.”
“What did she look like?”
Lorraine looked uncomfortable.
“Blonde. Younger than Ethan. Thirty, maybe.”
“Name?”
“Something beginning with M.”
I sat very still.
Only one name came to mind.
Mallory Reed.
Ethan’s former marketing director.
She had worked for him four years earlier.
Smart.
Funny.
Always around.
Ethan once told me she quit because she moved to Denver.
I searched her name after Lorraine left.
Her professional profile showed she still lived in Chicago.
Worse, her work history listed something I had never seen.
Northstar Hospitality Consulting — Director of Marketing.
My hands began shaking.
I called Rachel.
“Do you remember Mallory?”
Silence.
Then:
“Oh, Claire.”
“You knew?”
“No. But I remember her.”
I told Rachel everything.
She drove over that evening with Thai food.
We sat cross-legged on my rental apartment floor because I still hadn’t bought a dining table.
“Don’t assume affair,” she said.
“I’m trying not to.”
“Business secrets are bad enough.”
“I know.”
“What do you want?”
That question kept appearing.
What did I want?
Truth?
Justice?
Revenge?
For Ethan to hurt?
No.
I wanted my life back.
But I needed to know what life I was leaving.
Three days later, Amanda called.
“We located the condo.”
I gripped the phone.
“And?”
“It’s leased by Northstar.”
“Who lives there?”
“We can’t confirm occupancy.”
Then Amanda paused.
“But utilities are in someone else’s name.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mallory Reed?”
“No.”
My eyes opened.
“Who?”
“A woman named Samantha Cole.”
I had never heard that name.
“Do we know who she is?”
“We’re working on it.”
Twenty minutes later, I received a message from an unknown number.
Claire, my name is Samantha. I think we need to talk about Ethan.
My entire body went cold.
A second message appeared.
And before you ask, no. I’m not his mistress.
May you like
Then a third.
I’m his business partner. And Ethan has been lying to both of us.
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