Chapter 6
The divorce attorney’s name was Rebecca Sloan.
She was forty-two, direct, and completely unimpressed by the word family.
That alone made me trust her.
I spent almost two hours explaining my marriage.
The hidden debt.
The forged signatures.
The inheritance.
The missing tablet.
The attempted transfer.
Linda.
Megan.
Curtis Vale.
Rebecca barely interrupted.
When I finished, she closed her notebook.
“First, your inheritance is generally separate property if you keep it separate.”
I exhaled.
“But,” she continued, “your situation is more complicated because your husband appears to have attempted to access it fraudulently.”
“Does that hurt me?”
“No. It hurts him.”
I nodded.
“What about the house?”
“We’ll investigate the loan.”
“He forged my signature.”
“If that’s true, we challenge it.”
“What if the bank says it’s valid?”
“Then we get the application, signature records, authentication logs, and closing documents.”
The words sounded cold and technical.
I loved them.
Facts.
Records.
Things that didn’t care whether Ryan cried.
“Can I file now?”
“Yes.”
“I want to.”
Rebecca studied me.
“Are you sure?”
I thought about the wedding photo.
Ryan crying during our vows.
Sunday mornings.
Inside jokes.
The way he held my hand when my mother had surgery.
Six years didn’t disappear because someone betrayed you.
That was the terrible part.
All the good memories stayed.
They simply became painful.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m sure.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Then we file.”
My phone buzzed.
A text from Ryan.
I have your tablet. Meet me alone or I’m throwing it away.
I showed Rebecca.
She read it twice.
“Don’t respond yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I want a copy.”
She took a photograph.
Then she said, “Now respond: Please preserve the device. It contains evidence relevant to pending legal and police matters. Deliver it to the police.”
I typed exactly that.
Ryan responded almost immediately.
You really hate me that much?
I didn’t answer.
Rebecca leaned back.
“He’s trying to move this from facts into emotions.”
“He’s good at that.”
“Most controlling people are.”
The word hit me.
Controlling.
I had avoided using it for years.
“What happens next?”
“We file. We request financial disclosures. And based on what you’ve told me, I would also request temporary orders preventing either party from selling, transferring, hiding, or borrowing against marital assets.”
“Can he sell the house?”
“Not if we move quickly.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Because you look worried.”
I told her about Ryan’s warning.
The inheritance becoming “a bigger problem.”
Rebecca’s expression sharpened.
“We’ll include that.”
By late afternoon, the divorce petition was prepared.
I signed it.
My hand shook when the pen touched paper.
Sarah Miller.
For six years I had written that name proudly.
Now it felt borrowed.
Rebecca noticed.
“You can restore your maiden name in the divorce.”
I looked at the signature.
Sarah Miller.
Then I thought of the account.
Sarah Elizabeth Carter.
“Yes,” I said.
“I want that too.”
When I left her office, I had seventeen missed calls.
Nine from Ryan.
Five from Linda.
Three from my mother.
I stopped.
My mother?
She rarely called more than once.
I called her back.
She answered immediately.
“Sarah?”
“Mom?”
“Oh, thank God.”
“What happened?”
“Ryan called me.”
Of course.
“What did he say?”
“He said you’re having some kind of breakdown.”
My jaw tightened.
“I’m not.”
“He said you discovered your grandfather left you money and you became paranoid.”
“Mom.”
“He said you called the police on Linda.”
“Because Linda stole five thousand dollars from my dresser.”
Silence.
“What?”
“And Ryan forged a financial document to access my inheritance.”
Another silence.
Longer.
Then my mother said something strange.
“William left you money?”
I frowned.
“You knew he died?”
“I knew he was sick.”
“How?”
She didn’t answer.
“Mom?”
“I need to tell you something.”
My stomach dropped again.
I was beginning to hate those words.
“Tell me.”
“Not on the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because I should have told you years ago.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mom, I cannot handle another secret today.”
“I know.”
“Then tell me now.”
She breathed slowly.
“Your grandfather tried to contact you.”
“What?”
“Years ago.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“How many years?”
“After your father left.”
“That was twenty years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I sent the letters back.”
I stared at the parking lot.
Cars moved around me.
People pushed shopping carts.
A normal afternoon.
My entire history was changing in the middle of it.
“You did what?”
“I was angry.”
“At him?”
“At all of them.”
“Why?”
“Your father abandoned us. William defended him.”
“So you kept my grandfather away from me?”
“I was protecting you.”
There was that word again.
Protecting.
Apparently everyone in my life had been protecting me by making decisions without me.
“How many letters?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Sarah—”
“How many?”
“At least six.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“Did he call?”
“Yes.”
“Did you let me talk to him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You were a child.”
“I was thirteen the last time I saw him.”
“You were vulnerable.”
“So you decided for me.”
“I was your mother.”
“And later?”
Silence.
“What happened when I turned eighteen?”
“He wrote again.”
My breath left me.
“You hid that too.”
“I thought reopening everything would hurt you.”
“You thought.”
“Sarah, please.”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“No more ‘please.’ No more ‘I was protecting you.’ Everybody keeps taking choices away from me and then calling it love.”
My mother started crying.
I couldn’t listen.
“I need to go.”
“Sarah.”
I ended the call.
I sat in my car and cried until my chest hurt.
Then someone knocked on the passenger window.
I jumped.
It was Megan.
I unlocked the door.
She climbed in.
“Emily told me where you were.”
I wiped my face.
“Apparently everyone knows where I am.”
“That was a joke.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“What happened?”
“My mother knew my grandfather tried to contact me.”
“Oh.”
“She kept his letters from me.”
Megan was silent.
Then she said, “I’m sorry.”
I laughed bitterly.
“I’m surrounded by people who love me so much they never let me make my own decisions.”
Megan looked down.
“I know the feeling.”
That was why she had come.
Not to lecture.
Not to fix.
Just to sit there.
After a minute, she handed me a coffee.
“I brought this.”
I took it.
“Thanks.”
“And I brought something else.”
She pulled out her phone.
“What?”
“Ryan called me again.”
My body tensed.
“I didn’t answer.”
“Good.”
“But he left a voicemail.”
She played it.
Ryan sounded furious.
“Megan, stay out of my marriage. Sarah is confused and you’re making it worse. If she files anything, tell her she needs to think very carefully, because she signed plenty of documents she probably doesn’t remember signing.”
The voicemail ended.
I stared at Megan.
“She signed plenty of documents.”
“That’s what he said.”
A memory hit me.
Three years earlier.
Ryan had refinanced his car.
He brought home a stack of papers.
He told me several were routine forms related to household income.
I had signed without reading closely.
Another memory.
Two years earlier.
Insurance documents.
“Just sign here.”
Another.
Tax paperwork.
“Sign on the last page.”
My stomach turned.
“How many times has he used my signature?”
Megan looked worried.
“We need to find out.”
Rebecca’s office was still open.
We went back.
I played the voicemail.
Rebecca immediately added it to the file.
Then she asked a question.
“Do you and Ryan have a safe-deposit box?”
“No.”
“Storage unit?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Office outside the home?”
“His company has a rented office.”
Megan suddenly looked up.
“No.”
“What?”
“He closed it three months ago.”
I stared at her.
“Ryan told me he was there last week.”
Megan shook her head.
“The landlord locked him out for unpaid rent.”
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was Daniel Price.
I answered.
“Sarah, we received something unusual.”
“What?”
“A courier delivered a document approximately twenty minutes ago.”
My chest tightened.
“What document?”
“A signed marital agreement.”
I looked at Rebecca.
“What kind of agreement?”
Daniel paused.
“One stating that all future inheritances received by either spouse will be treated as jointly owned marital property.”
I stopped breathing.
“I never signed that.”
“I suspected you might say that.”
Rebecca held out her hand for the phone.
I put it on speaker.
“When is it dated?” she asked.
“Eighteen months ago.”
“Notarized?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
Daniel read the name.
Megan’s face drained of color.
“What?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“That’s Linda’s cousin.”
My stomach dropped.
Rebecca’s voice became cold.
“Mr. Price, please preserve the original exactly as received.”
“I will.”
I stared at the wall.
Ryan hadn’t started planning three weeks ago.
He hadn’t started planning when the inheritance letter arrived.
A fake agreement had been created eighteen months earlier.
Long before my grandfather died.
Long before Ryan supposedly knew there would be money.
I looked at Megan.
“How did he know?”
She whispered, “I don’t know.”
Then my phone rang again.
My mother.
I almost ignored it.
Something stopped me.
I answered.
“Mom.”
Her voice was shaking.
“Sarah, I forgot one thing.”
“What?”
“About eighteen months ago, William called the house.”
My skin went cold.
“What did he say?”
“He asked for your address.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.”
“Then how did Ryan find out?”
“I didn’t tell Ryan.”
A pause.
“But Linda was here.”
I stood completely still.
May you like
My mother continued.
“She heard the entire conversation.”
