Chapter 3 - THE FORENSIC TRAIL
The flashbulb left a bright, lingering green afterimage dancing across my vision.
Grant released my wrist as if it were burning hot coal, his eyes widening in horror as he noticed the blogger lowering her phone and tapping her screen to upload the frame.
“Delete that photo,” Grant hissed, lunging toward the coat check area, but the blogger had already slipped through the side exit into the rainy Chicago night.
Sloane grabbed the lapel of Grant’s jacket, her voice rising in panic. “Grant, fix this! Who is she? You told me she was just a housewife who stayed home baking cookies! You said she didn't even know what a balance sheet looked like!”
“She doesn't!” Grant snapped, his composure completely fracturing under the lights of the dining room. He turned back to me, his voice dropping into a frantic, low whisper. “Evelyn, stop this. Whatever game you’re playing, let’s go home. We can talk about the divorce terms in private. You want the house? Take the house. You want the summer place in Lake Geneva? It’s yours.”
I looked at him, feeling a profound, chilling emptiness where thirty years of shared history used to reside.
“You’re offering me my own property, Grant?” I asked, adjusting the strap of my handbag. “The Lake Geneva cottage was purchased with the inheritance my grandfather left me after he sold his stake in the railway. You didn't even have a checking account when my father let you into the firm as a junior estimator.”
“That was twenty years ago!” Grant shouted, causing a nearby table of diners to drop their forks in unison. “I built this company! I put the bids together! I worked seventy-hour weeks while you sat in the garden!”
“You worked seventy-hour weeks,” I repeated quietly, “while routing corporate funds through three different shell companies registered in the Cayman Islands under Sloane’s maiden name.”
Sloane went completely rigid. The color drained from her face so fast her makeup looked like a mask painted over clay.
“How... how could you possibly know about that?” Sloane stammered, stepping back until her designer heel caught the edge of the rug.
“Because,” I said, turning to face her directly, “when you’re married to a man who leaves his tax returns open on the dining room table while he’s in the shower, you develop a habit of reading the footnotes. Especially the footnotes written by an overseas auditing firm that forgot to remove my email address from the primary notification registry.”
Grant stared at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. The “little bookkeeper” routine he had played for a decade in front of his board members was gone, replaced by the terrifying realization that the woman he had underestimated for years was holding the keys to his entire professional existence.
“You hacked my files,” Grant whispered, his voice trembling.
“I didn't have to hack anything, Grant. You emailed them to yourself using our home Wi-Fi network,” I said, pulling a folded manila envelope from my bag and tapping it lightly against my palm. “Every wire transfer. Every inflated construction invoice for the North Side project. Every fraudulent receipt for the diamond pendant Sloane is wearing right now—purchased using corporate development funds designated for public park maintenance.”
Simon stood behind the hostess stand, wisely keeping his distance, though his eyes never left the manila envelope.
“If the state tax commission gets those files,” Grant said, his voice dropping into a ragged plea, “I’ll be looking at federal penitentiary time. Not a civil settlement. Federal time.”
“Then it’s a good thing you brought your briefcase tonight,” I replied, turning toward the exit. “Because you’re going to need it to pack your things when the marshals arrive to execute the asset freeze at dawn.”
Before Grant could lunge after me, his phone rang shrilly from inside his suit pocket. He pulled it out with shaking fingers, glanced at the screen, and answered it on the second ring.
May you like
“What?!” Grant barked into the receiver.
I didn't stay to hear the voice on the other end. I pushed open the heavy glass doors of Bellwether and stepped out into the cool Chicago rain, leaving my husband standing under the crystal chandelier with his mistress and his ruined empire.
