Chapter 2: The Six Months Before
Rachel arrived twenty minutes later wearing pajama pants, a winter coat, and the expression she usually reserved for people who had hurt her family.
She found me sitting on the bedroom floor with my back against the bed, still wearing the green dress I'd chosen for my birthday dinner.
She knelt in front of me.
"Emily, look at me.""
I tried.
"Did he hit you?""
"No.""
"Did he threaten you?""
"No.""
"Then tell me what happened.""
I handed her my phone.
She read Brooke's messages without speaking. When she reached the last one, her eyebrows drew together.
"The money?""
"I don't know.""
"How long has this been going on?""
"I don't know that either.""
Rachel set the phone down carefully.
"Okay. We're going to figure this out.""
I shook my head.
"She was there when I got married. She held my hand while I cried because Mom wasn't alive to see it. She helped me choose the dress. She came over when I had that miscarriage, and she stayed for three nights because I couldn't sleep alone.""
Rachel's expression softened.
"I know.""
"I told her things I never told anyone else.""
"I know, Em.""
"She knew how badly I wanted this marriage to work.""
Rachel reached for my hand.
"That doesn't make what she did your fault.""
I wanted to believe her.
But my mind kept returning to the same questions. When had it started? Had Brooke been touching Jason while I stood beside her at my birthday party? Had she been looking at him while I thanked him for the life we shared?
Had every kind thing either of them had done for me become a performance?
Rachel helped me pack a small bag. Before we left, I went downstairs to get my medication and the charger beside the sofa.
The living room was empty.
The spilled wine had been wiped from the coffee table. The three plates were gone. Someone had thrown away the cake, but the candles remained on the counter, their wicks blackened and crooked.
Jason had cleaned up after himself.
I stared at the empty counter.
Then I noticed the bracelet box was gone, too.
I took a photograph of the counter and another of the birthday card Brooke had written. I didn't know why. Perhaps some part of me was already afraid that tomorrow someone would tell me I had imagined everything.
Rachel watched me.
"Ready?""
I nodded.
As I walked toward the front door, I saw a small piece of paper caught beneath the leg of the dining table.
I bent down and pulled it free.
It was a receipt from a restaurant downtown.
Two entrees. One bottle of wine. Dessert.
The date was six weeks earlier.
I turned it over.
On the back, in Jason's handwriting, were four words.
Thursday. Same place. Again.
My stomach tightened.
"What's that?"" Rachel asked.
I showed her.
She looked at the date, then at me.
"Has Jason been working late on Thursdays?""
I couldn't answer immediately.
For months, Thursday had been the night he came home after nine. He'd told me he was meeting a client for dinner, then catching up on paperwork at the office.
I'd believed him because he was an accountant and tax season had been brutal.
I'd even started saving him dinner in the oven.
Rachel folded the receipt and slipped it into my bag.
"Let's go.""
That night, I slept in my sister's guest room with the light on.
At 2:17 a.m., I opened the message Brooke had sent me again.
Especially not about the money.
I thought about our finances.
Jason managed most of our investments because he understood them better than I did. I worked as a project manager for a medical supply company, earning enough to pay my share of the bills and save a little each month. Jason had always encouraged me to leave the complicated financial decisions to him.
"You handle the real world," he'd say.
"I'll handle the numbers.""
I'd thought it was sweet.
Now it sounded like a warning I'd failed to recognize.
At seven the next morning, I called my bank.
A woman named Denise answered and asked how she could help.
"I need to review my joint account and investment transfers," I said.
"I think there may be transactions I don't recognize.""
"Certainly, ma'am. For security, I'll need to verify a few details.""
I answered her questions and waited.
Then the line went quiet.
"Is there a problem?"" I asked.
"I'm reviewing the account notes," Denise said.
"One moment, please.""
I heard keyboard clicks.
"Mrs. Carter, I can see several transfers to an external account over the last six months. The total is thirty-eight thousand five hundred dollars.""
I sat up straight.
"Thirty-eight thousand?""
"Yes, ma'am.""
"Where did it go?""
"I can provide the receiving institution and account details available to you. However, the external account is not in your name.""
My fingers tightened around the phone.
"Whose name is it in?""
"Before I disclose that information, I need to send you a secure verification request.""
I completed it while Rachel sat beside me, drinking coffee and watching my face.
A moment later, Denise returned.
"The account holder is Brooke Bennett.""
The mug slipped from Rachel's hand.
Coffee splashed across the kitchen table.
I didn't move.
"Can you tell me what the transfers were for?""
"I can confirm the dates and amounts, but I can't determine the purpose of each transaction.""
"Did my husband authorize them?""
"Several appear to have been initiated through online access associated with your joint account. You'll need to review the account history and access records to establish who made them.""
I thanked her and ended the call.
Rachel was already pulling a chair closer.
"Thirty-eight thousand dollars," she said.
"Emily, that's not an affair with expensive dinners. That's something else.""
I opened the banking app.
The transfers were there, one after another, spread across six months. Some were small enough to look ordinary. Others were several thousand dollars at a time.
The descriptions were vague: personal transfer, consulting, reimbursement.
I took screenshots.
Then I remembered Brooke's message.
I called her.
She answered immediately.
"Emily?""
"Why did Jason send you thirty-eight thousand dollars?""
Silence.
"Brooke, answer me.""
"Where are you?""
"Don't do that. You don't get to ask me questions right now.""
She exhaled shakily.
"I was going to tell you.""
"You keep saying that. You were going to tell me last night. You were going to tell me six months ago, apparently. When exactly were you planning to tell me?""
"Emily, please listen.""
"Did you sleep with my husband?""
She began crying.
"Yes.""
The word landed between us with a terrible finality.
I closed my eyes.
"How long?""
"Since April.""
It was October.
Six months.
Six months of birthdays, lunches, weekend shopping trips, and late-night conversations. Six months of Brooke asking whether Jason and I were happy. Six months of Jason kissing me goodnight after spending time with her.
I gripped the edge of the table.
"Why the money?""
She stopped crying.
That frightened me more than the confession.
"Brooke?""
"I can't explain it over the phone.""
"You can explain it right now.""
"I didn't ask him for all of it.""
"That isn't an answer.""
"He offered to help me.""
"Help you with what?""
She whispered something I couldn't understand.
"What?""
"My business.""
Brooke had opened a small event-planning company two years earlier. I had helped her design the website, attended her launch party, and recommended her to everyone I knew. She'd struggled financially at first, but last spring she'd told me things were finally turning around.
"Your business is failing?""
"No. It's not that simple.""
"Then make it simple.""
She inhaled sharply.
"Jason said the money was part of an investment.""
"What investment?""
"I don't know all the details.""
I stood so abruptly that the chair scraped backward.
"You accepted thirty-eight thousand dollars from my husband and you don't know the details?""
"He told me he had permission to use the money!""
I froze.
"What?""
"He said you'd agreed to it. He told me you'd discussed helping me expand the business, and that you wanted to keep it quiet until everything was finalized.""
My mouth went dry.
"You're telling me Jason said I gave you our money?""
"Yes.""
"And you believed him?""
She didn't answer.
I thought of every conversation Brooke and I had shared about our futures. Every time she'd thanked me for supporting her. Every time she'd asked how Jason and I were managing financially.
She hadn't been asking because she cared.
She'd been checking what I knew.
"Did you believe him when he told you I knew about the affair, too?"" I asked.
Her crying stopped.
"What?""
"Did he tell you I knew?""
"No.""
"Did he tell you I was planning to leave him?""
"No.""
"Did he tell you anything about me at all, or did you just decide I was stupid enough not to notice?""
"Emily, that's not fair.""
I laughed again.
"Fair?""
"I know I made a terrible mistake. I know I hurt you. But Jason told me things about your marriage that I believed.""
"What things?""
She hesitated.
Then she said, "He told me you were planning to divorce him.""
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
"Why would he tell you that?""
"He said you were unhappy. He said you'd been discussing separation with a lawyer, and that you were waiting until after your birthday to make it official.""
I stared at the wall.
I had never discussed divorce with a lawyer.
I'd never threatened to leave Jason.
We'd argued, certainly. We'd struggled with the stress of trying to have a child. We'd spent too many evenings distracted by work. But I had believed our marriage was worth saving.
"Brooke," I said slowly, "did Jason tell you that before or after he started transferring the money?""
She didn't answer.
I heard her breathing through the phone.
Then she whispered, "Before.""
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
"How long before?""
"Emily—"
"How long?""
"Two weeks.""
Two weeks before the first transfer, Jason had told my best friend that our marriage was ending.
And I had no idea why.
I ended the call.
Rachel took my phone from my hand and placed it on the table.
"You're not going back to that house alone," she said.
"I need to see the bank records.""
"We can get them.""
"I need to know what he was doing.""
"We'll find out.""
My phone buzzed.
An email had arrived from Jason's personal account.
The subject line read: *Our Future — Please Read Before You Make Any Decisions.*
I opened it.
The message was only three sentences long.
Emily, I know you're angry, but Brooke is not the person you think she is. She has been lying to both of us.
I have proof.
If you want to know what really happened six months ago, look in the blue folder in my office.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at Rachel.
"What happened six months ago?"" she asked.
"I don't know.""
But the date was already beginning to make sense.
April.
The month the transfers started.
The month Jason said he had to work late every Thursday.
The month Brooke suddenly began insisting that I should take a long weekend away with my sister because I looked exhausted.
I opened my calendar.
Six months earlier, on April 12, Jason had asked me to sign several documents for our annual financial review.
He'd brought them home in a blue folder.
I'd signed where he pointed, trusting him to handle the details.
Now I remembered one strange thing.
After I signed, he'd taken the folder into his office and locked the door.
At the time, I'd thought nothing of it.
I looked at Jason's email again.
Then I noticed the timestamp.
He had sent it at 3:06 a.m.
And attached to the bottom of the email was a photograph.
It showed a document with my signature.
May you like
Beneath it was a line of text I had never seen before.
*Business Loan Guarantee — Personal Liability: $185,000.*
