Chapter 5 - The Confrontation and the Yellow Ledger
We walked back into the restaurant through the rear kitchen doors. The dining room was still warmly lit, the tables meticulously set with the thrifted plates I had spent months collecting.
Standing just inside the glass front doors was Monica.
She wore a camel-hair coat that cost more than my first car, her hair perfectly blown out. When she saw me walk out of the kitchen, she didn't look guilty. She looked pitying.
"Anne," Monica said, stepping forward with a soft, condescending sigh. "Frank told me you might still be here. I am so sorry about how things ended today. Truly. But given your condition, we all know this is for the best."
I stopped ten feet away from her. "My condition?"
Monica offered a sad smile. "Frank told me all about your gambling problem, Anne. He told me how you blew Daniel’s restaurant money at the casinos, and how he had to step in and buy the building just to keep the family out of federal court. You don't have to hide it anymore. Frank has been so brave, carrying your debts for ten years."
The sheer audacity of the lie stole the breath from my lungs. Frank hadn't just hidden his double life; he had actively painted me as a degenerate addict to justify his secret assets to his mistress. He had played the tragic, long-suffering husband perfectly.
"Monica," Daniel said, his voice dangerously low. "My mother doesn't gamble. She sold her inheritance to buy these ovens. My father is the one who evicted me an hour ago."
Monica blinked, her perfect composure faltering for a fraction of a second before she recovered. "Daniel, denial is part of the disease. Frank has the bank records. He showed me the ledgers."
She reached into her oversized designer tote bag and pulled out a thick, yellow ledger book.
"Frank asked me to keep this safe for him," Monica said defensively. "He said it proves he's been making the mortgage payments on this building for six months to cover your mother's stolen funds."
I walked forward and snatched the yellow ledger right out of her manicured hands.
"Let's see what he's been paying," I said, flipping the book open.
The pages were filled with Frank's meticulous handwriting. But the payments weren't going to a local bank for a commercial mortgage. They were monthly wire transfers of twelve thousand dollars going to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands.
Frank wasn't just stealing from our marriage. He was funneling massive amounts of money offshore, and he was using Monica to physically hold the evidence, making her an unwitting accomplice to international wire fraud.
I turned the book around so Monica could see the offshore routing numbers.
"Does this look like a local mortgage payment to you, Monica?" I asked.
Monica stared at the numbers, her confident posture deflating. "He told me he was paying the local credit union."
As she stared in horror, I flipped to the very back of the yellow ledger. Tucked inside the back cover was a glossy white business card. It fell out and fluttered onto the hardwood floor.
Daniel picked it up. He read the front of the card, his face draining of all color.
It was a business card for a high-profile corporate bankruptcy attorney. And written on the back in Frank’s handwriting was an appointment time: Tomorrow, 9:00 AM.
May you like
But the name written next to the appointment wasn't Frank's.
It was Daniel’s.
