Chapter 4
I knew immediately what Charlotte meant.
But hearing the number spoken out loud in Linda’s living room made it sound exactly the way she intended.
Secretive.
Suspicious.
Damning.
Ethan stared at me.
“Daniel gave you fifty thousand dollars?”
“No.”
Charlotte laughed.
“Oh, please.”
“He didn’t give it to me.”
“You deposited a fifty-thousand-dollar check.”
Officer Martinez paused beside the front door with Linda.
Even Linda looked interested now.
Ethan’s expression tightened.
“Emily?”
“It was a company payment.”
“For what?”
Before I could answer, Charlotte held up her phone.
“I have the bank record.”
I stared at her.
“What bank record?”
She tapped the screen.
“A deposit into an account with your name on it.”
My blood ran cold.
“How did you get my financial information?”
Charlotte’s confidence returned.
“That’s what you care about?”
“Yes.”
Because suddenly this wasn’t just a family feud.
It was something much bigger.
I had a separate business account for freelance consulting work.
Ethan knew about it.
But only two people besides me had ever seen the account number.
Our accountant.
And Linda.
Three months earlier, Linda had offered to prepare a family trust document and asked everyone for banking information.
She had spent thirty years working in financial administration.
I had stupidly sent her a copy of one statement.
Ethan looked at his mother.
“Did you give Charlotte Emily’s bank information?”
Linda’s lips tightened.
“No.”
Charlotte glanced at her.
That was all I needed.
Officer Reed noticed too.
“Ms. Walsh,” she said to Charlotte, “how did you obtain Mrs. Walsh’s financial records?”
Charlotte looked suddenly nervous.
“I don’t remember.”
“You remembered the exact amount.”
“I saw it months ago.”
“Where?”
Charlotte didn’t answer.
Officer Martinez exchanged a look with his partner.
Linda pulled against his hold.
“This has nothing to do with tonight.”
“It might,” Reed said.
“It absolutely does not.”
The more Linda protested, the more obvious it became that something was wrong.
Ethan looked at me.
“What was the payment?”
I took a breath.
“Daniel’s company bought my software prototype.”
Charlotte blinked.
“What?”
“I’ve been developing an inventory-management tool for almost two years.”
Ethan nodded slowly.
He knew about the software.
He just hadn’t known the deal was finalized.
“I told you Daniel’s company was testing it.”
“Yes.”
“The fifty thousand was the first licensing payment.”
Charlotte stared at me.
“That’s a lie.”
“I have the contract.”
“You never told Ethan.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Ethan looked surprised.
I swallowed.
“I wanted to tell you after dinner. The payment cleared Friday. I thought we could finally pay off the remaining medical bills and put the rest toward Noah’s college account.”
His face softened.
Charlotte immediately attacked again.
“How convenient that you suddenly have an explanation.”
“I don’t need your approval.”
Linda spoke from near the doorway.
“Then why hide it?”
I turned toward her.
“I didn’t hide it.”
“You hid it from your husband.”
“For forty-eight hours.”
Linda laughed.
“A marriage built on secrets.”
Ethan looked at her.
“You planted stolen jewelry on my wife.”
That shut her up.
Officer Martinez guided Linda outside.
Her protests faded behind the closed door.
Charlotte sank into a chair.
For the first time, she looked scared instead of angry.
Officer Reed stayed behind.
“Mrs. Walsh, you should contact your bank tonight.”
“I will.”
“And change any passwords connected to accounts or financial records that Mrs. Walsh may have seen.”
My stomach turned.
“You think they accessed my account?”
“I’m not making that determination. I’m advising you to protect yourself.”
Ethan put a hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll do it now.”
Charlotte suddenly whispered, “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
I looked at her.
“What was supposed to happen?”
She shook her head.
Officer Reed crouched slightly so they were eye level.
“Charlotte, this is the time to be completely honest.”
Charlotte’s mouth trembled.
“You don’t understand my mother.”
Ethan’s voice hardened.
“I understand her better than I did two hours ago.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Then tell me.”
Charlotte covered her face.
“I owe money.”
Linda had always told everyone Charlotte was successful.
She worked in luxury real estate.
She drove a new Mercedes.
She lived in a condo that cost nearly twice what our house did.
She posted photographs from expensive restaurants.
Vacations.
Designer bags.
She constantly made comments about my “small salary” when I first married Ethan.
Ethan stared at her.
“How much?”
Charlotte looked at him.
“Almost two hundred thousand.”
I felt my mouth open.
“What?”
“Credit cards. Personal loans. Taxes.”
Ethan sat down.
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It absolutely matters.”
“I was trying to fix it.”
“By framing Emily?”
Charlotte started crying again.
“Mom said she could help me.”
My skin prickled.
“How?”
Charlotte looked toward the front door.
Then back at us.
“She said if you and Emily separated, everything would go back to normal.”
Ethan looked disgusted.
“What does your debt have to do with my marriage?”
Charlotte whispered, “The trust.”
Ethan went still.
“What trust?”
That question confused me.
Linda had mentioned a family trust before.
But Ethan always brushed it off as estate planning.
Charlotte wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“Dad’s trust.”
Their father, Richard, had died twelve years earlier.
Before Ethan and I married.
I had never met him.
Ethan stared at Charlotte.
“Dad didn’t have a trust.”
“Yes, he did.”
“No. Mom said his investments went to her.”
“Some did.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What are you saying?”
Charlotte closed her eyes.
“Dad left money for us.”
“How much?”
She didn’t answer.
“Charlotte.”
“Four million.”
The room disappeared around me.
Ethan actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the number seemed impossible.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
“Four million dollars?”
“Half for you. Half for me.”
Ethan stood.
“Our father died twelve years ago.”
“I know.”
“You’re saying there has been two million dollars in my name for twelve years?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then explain exactly.”
Charlotte’s voice shook.
“The trust had conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“You were supposed to receive your share at forty.”
Ethan was forty.
His birthday had been six weeks earlier.
I watched the realization hit him.
“Mom told me Dad’s estate was worth less than three hundred thousand.”
Charlotte nodded.
“She lied.”
“Why?”
“She thought you’d waste it.”
“On what?”
Charlotte looked at me.
Nobody had to answer.
Ethan’s face hardened.
“On Emily.”
Charlotte whispered, “Yes.”
I felt nauseated.
Linda hadn’t simply disliked me.
She believed I stood between her and control of millions of dollars.
Ethan took out his phone.
“I’m calling a lawyer.”
Charlotte stood quickly.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Why not?”
“Because if you start digging, Mom will know I told you.”
“Charlotte, Mom is currently sitting in a police car because you both tried to frame my wife.”
“You don’t understand.”
“What else is there?”
Her silence answered him.
Ethan walked closer.
“What else?”
Charlotte started shaking.
“Dad changed the trust before he died.”
“So?”
“He added another condition.”
“What condition?”
Charlotte looked at me.
Then Noah, who was standing in the hallway beside Aunt Susan.
Her face crumpled.
“If Ethan died before receiving his share, the money would go to his child.”
A chill crawled down my spine.
Ethan’s expression changed.
“And?”
Charlotte whispered, “If he died without a surviving child, it would go to me.”
Nobody spoke.
The sentence hung in the room like smoke.
I pulled Noah against me.
Ethan stared at Charlotte.
“Why are you telling me this?”
She began crying harder.
“Because Mom didn’t just want you divorced.”
My blood turned to ice.
Ethan whispered, “What did she want?”
Charlotte looked directly at her brother.
“She wanted Emily to lose custody of Noah.”
My knees weakened.
“What?”
“She said if Emily was arrested for stealing, Daniel could be made to look like her lover, and then you could file for emergency custody.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“And then?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
“No.”
“Charlotte!”
She screamed back.
“I DON’T KNOW!”
Noah started crying.
I took him into the kitchen.
Ethan followed a minute later.
He looked like he had aged ten years.
“I’m sorry.”
I stared at him.
“For what?”
“For bringing you into this family.”
I wanted to tell him none of this was his fault.
But I was too angry.
Too frightened.
Too overwhelmed.
“We’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“Tonight.”
“Yes.”
“We are not going home.”
He looked at me.
“Why?”
I lowered my voice.
“Because your mother knows where we live.”
His face tightened.
“You think she’d come there?”
“Two hours ago, I didn’t think she’d frame me for felony theft.”
That was enough.
We packed Noah’s things.
Officer Reed returned from outside and advised us to stay somewhere else if we felt unsafe.
She gave me a report number.
Then she said something that made my stomach twist.
“Document everything from tonight onward.”
We left Linda’s house shortly before midnight.
Ethan booked a hotel under my maiden name.
We drove in silence.
Noah fell asleep in the back seat holding his tablet.
Halfway to the hotel, Ethan’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
Then mine rang.
Unknown number.
I declined it.
A message appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT YOUR MOUTH SHUT.
I showed Ethan.
His face changed.
Another message came.
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHAT REALLY HAPPENED THE NIGHT HIS FATHER DIED.
I looked at Ethan.
His hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer.
“Ethan?”
May you like
His face had gone pale.
“There’s something I never told you about my father’s death.”
