James turned the page toward me.
My own name sat near the bottom.
Not Mark’s.
Mine.
For several seconds I simply stared at it, unable to understand why a financial record belonging to Jessica’s husband would contain anything connected to Anna Whitmore.
“What is this?” I asked.
James leaned back from my kitchen table.
The envelope containing two hundred thousand dollars remained between us, untouched.
“That,” he said, “is why I came here before Mark did.”
I read the page again.
There were dates, account references, transfers, and notes that looked ordinary until I recognized one number.
Our home-equity account.
The account Mark and I had opened two years earlier when we renovated the kitchen and replaced the roof.
My mouth went dry.
“We paid this down.”
“You did,” James said.
I looked up sharply.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you paid it down.
Mark appears to have found another use for it.”
I grabbed the financial folder I had packed with my suitcase and began pulling out statements.
I handled our household finances.
At least, I believed I did.
Mortgage.
Utilities.
Retirement contributions.
Insurance.
Taxes.
Mark handled several investment accounts because he claimed his work made him better at it.
I had trusted him.
Trust suddenly felt like another word for permission.
James pointed to a transfer.
“Do you recognize that?”
“No.”
“It went through an account Jessica had access to.”
My eyes moved to the amount.
Seventy-five thousand dollars.
Another transfer appeared six weeks later.
Forty thousand.
Then twenty-five.
I looked at James.
“You think they were stealing from us?”
“I think they were preparing.”
“For what?”
“To leave both marriages without leaving empty-handed.”
The Christmas lights outside my kitchen window blinked red, then white, then red again.
It should have looked festive.
Instead it felt like an alarm.
James opened another section of his folder.
He had photographs of Mark and Jessica leaving restaurants separately, meeting in parking garages, and entering a small office building downtown.
Nothing intimate.
Nothing dramatic.
That somehow made it worse.
They looked organized.
“What is that building?” I asked.
“A private financial office.”
