Chapter 3 - THE MONEY I DIDN’T KNOW WAS GONE
I found the transfer at 2:13 in the morning.
It had been buried between sixty-three pages of statements Claire had printed.
$250,000 — Westbrook Advisory Group.
Authorized from a business reserve account.
My digital signature appeared at the bottom.
I stared at it for almost a minute.
I had never heard of Westbrook Advisory Group.
My company developed luxury residential properties throughout North Carolina.
A quarter-million-dollar transfer was large enough that I should have remembered it.
I opened my laptop.
The payment had been coded as strategic land consultation.
Approved by me.
Reviewed by my chief financial officer, Ryan Marshall.
The date was six weeks earlier.
I checked my calendar.
I had been in Charleston that morning.
With Samantha.
A memory surfaced.
We had been in a hotel suite when Ryan emailed several documents requiring urgent signatures.
Samantha had been beside me.
I remembered complaining about work.
She had laughed and taken my laptop.
“Give me the password. I’ll open everything while you shower.”
I had given it to her.
Just like that.
My company password.
My personal laptop.
Access to years of financial information.
Because I had trusted my mistress more casually than I trusted the woman raising my daughter.
I called Ryan.
He answered on the fifth ring.
“Daniel?”
“I need you at the office.”
“It’s two-thirty.”
“I’m aware.”
“What happened?”
“Westbrook Advisory.”
Silence.
Tiny.
But there.
“What about it?”
“Office. Thirty minutes.”
I hung up.
Ryan arrived in twenty-seven.
He wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and the irritated expression of a man convinced the emergency would turn out to be unnecessary.
It disappeared when I placed the transfer in front of him.
“What is this?”
“You approved it.”
“No.”
“Your authorization is right there.”
“That isn’t my signature.”
“It’s electronic.”
“I know how electronic signatures work, Ryan.”
I turned the screen.
“I did not authorize this payment.”
He stared.
“Maybe you forgot.”
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars?”
“You’ve been distracted.”
The word irritated me.
Distracted.
As though I had misplaced a set of keys instead of a quarter-million dollars.
“Who owns Westbrook?”
“I’ll check.”
“You already reviewed the payment.”
“I review dozens.”
“You signed after me.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“I’m asking why money left my company for a vendor I don’t recognize.”
He opened the accounting system.
Three minutes later, his face changed.
“There are more.”
My stomach dropped.
“How many?”
He began scrolling.
$85,000.
$140,000.
$72,500.
$310,000.
Different consulting companies.
Different descriptions.
All approved over eight months.
All bearing my digital authorization.
The total reached $1.47 million.
I stared at Ryan.
“What the hell is this?”
He looked genuinely shaken now.
“I don’t know.”
“Who had access?”
“Finance. You. Me.”
“Samantha.”
Ryan looked up.
“What?”
“She had my password.”
His expression became unreadable.
“You gave Samantha Cole access to your laptop?”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not judging you.”
“Everyone should be judging me.”
He said nothing.
I called our outside forensic accountant before sunrise.
Then my attorney.
Then the bank.
I froze every discretionary business account I legally could.
At 6:40, I remembered Claire.
If she had found the transfers before me, what had she thought?
That I was moving money before a divorce?
Hiding marital assets?
Financing a new life with Samantha?
I wanted to call her.
I didn’t.
Instead, I called Claire’s attorney.
A woman named Laura Pierce answered with the kind of voice that suggested she had been expecting me.
“Mr. Foster.”
So apparently I was Mr. Foster now.
Not Daniel.
Not Claire’s husband.
“Ms. Pierce, I need you to tell Claire something.”
“You can communicate through me.”
“I discovered suspicious transfers from my company.”
Silence.
“I’m freezing the accounts and ordering an independent audit.”
“That is appropriate.”
“I’m not moving money.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“But Claire thinks I am.”
Another pause.
“Claire believes several things.”
“I need her to know I’m not trying to hide assets from her.”
“I’ll relay that.”
“And whatever temporary support she needs—”
“She has money.”
“I know.”
Actually, I didn’t.
Not really.
Claire had left her career in marketing when Hope was born.
Before that, we had combined most of our finances.
I had never wondered whether she still had money of her own.
That realization embarrassed me.
“Still,” I said. “Anything Hope needs.”
“Your daughter is being provided for.”
“My responsibility doesn’t disappear because Claire can afford diapers.”
Laura paused.
“Then I suggest you transfer an agreed amount into the temporary family account after counsel reviews it. Do not send random payments. It can complicate matters.”
“Fine.”
“And Mr. Foster?”
“Yes?”
“Claire has agreed to a visit.”
Everything else disappeared.
“When?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
My throat tightened.
“Where?”
“A private family-law office. Two hours.”
“Will Claire be there?”
“Yes.”
“Supervised?”
“Claire isn’t requesting formal supervision at this stage. She is requesting that the first visits occur somewhere neutral.”
That hurt.
I deserved it.
“I’ll be there.”
I arrived forty minutes early.
Hope arrived precisely on time.
Claire carried her through the conference-room door in a pale blue onesie with tiny clouds printed across it.
For a second, I forgot to breathe.
My daughter looked different.
Impossible after four days.
But she did.
Maybe because I had never looked at her long enough before.
“Hi,” I whispered.
Hope blinked at me.
Then smiled.
A real smile.
My knees almost gave out.
Claire saw it.
Her face remained calm.
“Her bottle is in the bag. She ate an hour ago, so she probably won’t need it yet.”
I nodded too quickly.
“Okay.”
“She likes being held upright after feeding.”
“I know.”
Claire looked at me.
I realized how defensive that sounded.
“Sorry.”
Her expression softened by a fraction.
“She gets fussy around four.”
“Okay.”
“Her pediatrician changed the reflux medication dosage.”
I froze.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine.”
I wanted to ask why nobody told me.
Then stopped myself.
Because I hadn’t attended the last three pediatric appointments.
Claire handed Hope to me.
The moment my daughter settled against my chest, something inside me cracked.
She smelled like baby shampoo.
Her tiny fist curled around my shirt.
I had held her before.
Of course I had.
But too often I had held her while checking email.
While watching television.
While waiting for Claire to take her back.
Now there was nothing else in the room.
Just Hope.
I kissed the top of her head.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire looked away.
The visit lasted two hours.
I changed a diaper badly.
Claire corrected me once.
I fed Hope.
Burped her.
Walked around the room when she started fussing.
At one point she fell asleep against me.
I sat completely still for thirty-seven minutes because I was afraid moving would wake her.
When the visit ended, Claire placed Hope in the carrier.
I didn’t ask her to come home.
I wanted to.
Instead I said, “I told your attorney about the money.”
Claire’s hands stopped.
“So you found it.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“One point four-seven million so far.”
Her face changed.
She had not known the full amount.
“I thought it was two hundred fifty thousand.”
“So did I.”
“Did Samantha take it?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire zipped Hope’s bag.
“You trusted her with your password.”
It wasn’t a question.
My stomach tightened.
“How did you know?”
Claire looked at me.
“Because the private investigator photographed her using your laptop at the Charleston hotel.”
Of course.
Another photograph.
Another thing Claire knew before I did.
“I’m sorry.”
She laughed quietly.
“You use that phrase a lot now.”
“I’m going to keep using it as long as it’s true.”
“It doesn’t fix anything.”
“I know.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Stop saying that.”
Despite everything, we both almost smiled.
Then Claire became serious.
“Daniel, I need you to understand something.”
“I’m listening.”
“If Samantha stole from you, that does not make you a victim in our marriage.”
“I know.”
“She can be a liar and you can still have betrayed me.”
“Yes.”
“You can uncover an entire criminal conspiracy tomorrow and it will not erase what you chose.”
“I understand.”
Claire stared at me for a long moment.
I think she had expected resistance.
There was none left.
She picked up Hope’s carrier.
Before leaving, she stopped.
“Samantha didn’t just use your computer.”
My stomach tightened.
“What else?”
“She met Ryan.”
“What?”
“Three times that my investigator documented.”
I felt the room go cold.
“Where?”
“Twice at a restaurant in SouthPark.”
“And the third?”
Claire opened the door.
“A hotel.”
I stared at her.
“You’re saying Samantha was sleeping with Ryan?”
“I’m saying I have photographs of them entering the same hotel room.”
Then she left.
That night I confronted Ryan.
He denied everything for eleven minutes.
Then I showed him the photographs Claire’s attorney had forwarded.
His face went white.
And just when I thought I had finally discovered how $1.47 million vanished from my company, Ryan looked at me and said:
“You still don’t understand, Daniel.”
“What?”
“Samantha wasn’t stealing from you with me.”
May you like
He swallowed.
“She was stealing from both of us.”
