Chapter 7 - ETHAN'S PRICEEthan had not moved twenty-six thousand dollars for my mother as a favor.
He had been paid five thousand dollars to do it.
Daniel found the transfer.
Mom had deposited the money into Hartwell Consulting four days after the larger transaction was completed.
I stared at the bank records in his office.
“My husband charged my mother a fee to hide money stolen from me?”
Daniel kept his tone careful.
“That is one interpretation.”
“What's the other?”
“He could claim legitimate consulting.”
“Consulting on how to launder my own money past me?”
“Savannah.”
“I know.”
I rubbed my temples.
“What else?”
Daniel didn't answer immediately.
That told me enough.
“Just say it.”
“Hartwell received payments from Ryan too.”
“How much?”
“Over two years? Forty-three thousand.”
I felt sick.
“For what?”
“That's what we need Ethan to explain.”
I called him.
He agreed to meet me at home.
Daniel offered to come.
I said no.
Then I remembered his message.
Do not confront Ethan alone.
So Rebecca came.
Not inside.
She sat in her car across the street.
It felt strange asking the mother I had known for two days to protect me from the husband I had known for twelve years.
But strange had become normal.
Ethan arrived at six.
He walked into the house and saw a folder on the table.
His shoulders dropped.
“You found more.”
“Yes.”
He sat.
I remained standing.
“What did Ryan pay you for?”
“Consulting.”
I almost admired his commitment.
“What kind?”
“Financial restructuring.”
“Ryan barely understands checking accounts.”
“That was why he needed help.”
“Did you help him hide money from creditors?”
“No.”
“From the IRS?”
“No.”
“From me?”
Silence.
I nodded.
“There it is.”
He stood.
“Savannah, you need to understand something about your family.”
“I understand plenty.”
“No, you don't. Your mother controls everybody through money.”
“My money.”
“Eventually, yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“Before you became successful, it was your grandfather's money. Then your father built the company. Then everything collapsed. Then you became the person everyone depended on.”
“So you decided to join them?”
“I tried to manage them.”
“By lying to me.”
“By preventing disasters.”
I laughed.
“You want credit?”
“No.”
His voice rose.
“I want you to understand that every six months someone in that family needed saving, and every six months they called you, and then you spent weeks anxious and furious and exhausted.”
“So?”
“So I started solving things before they reached you.”
The logic was so twisted it almost sounded caring.
“You hid problems to protect me.”
“Yes.”
“For a fee.”
His face tightened.
“That wasn't how it started.”
“But it became that.”
He paced.
“My business was struggling.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Morrison Development lost two major clients.”
“You told me the company was doing well.”
“I was embarrassed.”
“How much debt?”
He didn't answer.
“How much?”
“Three hundred thousand.”
I actually sat down.
We had joint tax returns.
Separate business accounts.
A comfortable life.
How had I missed three hundred thousand dollars?
“Does that include our house?”
“No.”
“Any debt in my name?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I almost believed him.
Then I remembered I had believed him yesterday.
“Show me.”
“What?”
“Every account. Tonight.”
“Savannah.”
“If there is one more surprise, this marriage is over.”
His eyes filled.
“Don't say that.”
“Then show me.”
He did.
And the marriage ended anyway.
There was no debt in my name.
But there were messages.
Hundreds.
Between Ethan and Ryan.
Between Ethan and Mom.
Plans.
Transfers.
Excuses.
Strategies for keeping me from noticing.
One message from Mom was especially memorable.
She'll pay if she thinks Richard is sick. Don't mention Ryan.
Ethan's reply:
Understood.
Another:
Savannah is asking why the wedding venue hasn't refunded the deposit. Brooke cannot know.
Ethan:
I'll handle it.
And then one from six months earlier.
Mom:
She cannot find Rebecca before Richard signs the papers.
Ethan:
What papers?
Mom:
The trust.
I looked at Ethan.
“What trust?”
He stared at the phone.
“I never found out.”
“Did you ask?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She said it was none of my business.”
“But helping her deceive me was?”
He started crying.
That should have moved me.
It didn't.
“I love you.”
I looked at the man I had shared a bed with for ten years.
“You loved being needed.”
“No.”
“You loved being the middleman. Everyone paid you. Everyone trusted you. You got to feel important.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Stop using that word.”
He covered his face.
“I screwed up.”
“Yes.”
“Can we fix this?”
I thought about our wedding.
Our first apartment.
The miscarried pregnancy we had grieved together four years earlier.
The nights he held me.
The mornings we laughed over burnt toast.
Relationships rarely die because every memory was false.
Sometimes they die because too many important ones become contaminated.
“I don't know,” I said.
His face lifted hopefully.
“But you need to leave.”
“For how long?”
“I don't know.”
“Savannah—”
“Please.”
He packed a suitcase.
When he walked outside, he noticed Rebecca's car.
He stopped.
Then looked back at me.
“Is that her?”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly.
“I'm sorry.”
I closed the door.
Rebecca came inside.
She didn't ask questions.
She made tea.
We sat at the kitchen island like two strangers trying to learn how to be family.
After a long silence, she said:
“You don't have to decide everything tonight.”
“I feel like everyone knew my life except me.”
“I know.”
“I don't even know what birthday is mine.”
“May second.”
I smiled faintly.
“I've hated May twenty-fourth for years.”
“Why?”
“Mom always made the day about how difficult my birth was.”
Rebecca laughed unexpectedly.
I looked at her.
“What?”
“You were an easy baby.”
My eyes filled.
She smiled through tears.
“You slept four hours the first night home. The nurse said I was lucky.”
For thirty years, my mother had told me I arrived screaming.
Rebecca remembered me sleeping.
Such a small thing.
It broke my heart.
The next morning Daniel called about the trust.
My grandfather—Mom's father—had created it shortly before his death.
Its beneficiary wasn't Mom.
It wasn't Ryan.
It wasn't Brooke.
It was me.
And according to the documents, the trust contained something far more valuable than Hawthorne Lane.
Forty-two percent of Whitmore Holdings.
A company currently valued at nearly eighteen million dollars.
There was one problem.
Someone had filed paperwork claiming I had voluntarily surrendered my interest six years earlier.
May you like
Someone had signed my name.
Again.
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