Catherine’s fingers rested on the open folder as if it weighed nothing.
Derek stared at it as though it were a weapon.
Around us, the children’s hospital gala had gone strangely quiet.
A few conversations continued near the far end of the ballroom, but the people closest to us had stopped pretending not to listen.
Brenda stood several feet behind Derek, one hand still wrapped around the stem of her champagne glass.
Catherine tilted her head toward his voice.
“You must be the husband.”
Derek’s mouth opened, but nothing came out at first.
Then he forced a laugh.
“Mrs.
Wilmington.
Of course.
I’ve heard a lot about you.
I didn’t realize Olivia knew you.”
“She didn’t,” Catherine said.
That answer unsettled him more than if she had shouted.
He looked at me.
“Olivia, can we talk privately?”
Five days earlier, I would have obeyed before he finished the sentence.
That night, I stayed beside Catherine.
“You can speak here.”
His jaw tightened.
“You’ve been missing for nearly a week.
I was worried sick.”
The lie was so effortless that for one terrible second I almost doubted myself.
Then Thomas moved beside Catherine and quietly handed me a second folder.
Inside were copies of the joint-account statements.
The withdrawals.
The hotel charges.
The restaurant receipts.
Dates and amounts highlighted by Catherine’s lawyer.
Evidence did not raise its voice.
It simply waited.
“You were worried?” I asked.
“Of course I was.
You disappeared.”
“You took my phone.”
A few people nearby turned fully toward us.
Derek glanced around.
“Olivia, this isn’t the place.”
“You took my wallet too.”
His face hardened.
“I was trying to teach you a lesson.
You were out of control with money.”
Catherine’s expression did not change.
“An eighty-dollar gift for her recovering mother?”
Derek froze.
That was the moment he understood I had told Catherine everything.
He lowered his voice.
“This is a private marital disagreement.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have made the lesson public by abandoning your wife on a city street without money or a phone,” Catherine replied.
Brenda stepped forward.
“Derek, maybe you should just go.”
Her voice was soft, but I knew it immediately.
I had heard it once months earlier through Derek’s car speakers when he thought he had ended a call.
A woman laughing.
