Chapter 3
I read Lauren’s message three times.
Then I locked the car doors.
Emma watched me from the back seat.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
It was a lie, but unlike Michael, I was trying to protect her from something she should never have been dragged into.
I called Lauren.
She answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Are you home?”
“No.”
She exhaled.
“Good.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Why?”
“Because Michael might get there before you.”
“What is in my house?”
Lauren started crying again.
I had no patience for her tears.
“You had enough courage to meet my husband every Thursday. Find enough courage to answer me.”
“It’s in his office.”
“What?”
“Bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Sarah, I’m sorry.”
I closed my eyes.
“Stop saying that.”
“He told me you knew about the money.”
“What money?”
Silence.
My stomach twisted.
“What money, Lauren?”
“He said you agreed to help his family.”
“Help them how?”
“I thought you knew.”
“You clearly didn’t care enough to ask me.”
She began sobbing.
I hung up.
I called my best friend, Marissa.
She lived twenty minutes away.
When she answered, I said only, “Can Emma stay with you tonight?”
Her voice changed instantly.
“What happened?”
“I’ll explain. Can she?”
“Of course.”
I drove there first.
I told Emma we were having a girls’ sleepover because the adults needed to talk.
She didn’t believe me.
She hugged me tightly before going inside.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let Dad be mean to you.”
My throat closed.
“I won’t.”
I kissed her forehead.
Then I drove home.
Michael’s car wasn’t there.
I parked two houses away anyway.
The moment I walked inside, the quiet felt different.
We had bought the house four years earlier.
I had paid most of the down payment with money my father left me.
Michael had chosen the kitchen cabinets.
Emma had picked the yellow flowers by the porch.
Suddenly every room felt contaminated by secrets.
I went straight upstairs.
Michael’s office door was locked.
That was new.
I stared at it.
Then I remembered the spare keys in the laundry cabinet.
The third key opened the door.
His office looked normal.
Desk.
Computer.
Family photographs.
One picture of Michael and me from our wedding sat beside the monitor.
I almost threw it.
Instead I opened the filing cabinet.
The top drawer contained tax documents.
The second held insurance.
The bottom drawer was locked.
My heartbeat accelerated.
I found a small key taped underneath the desk.
That scared me.
I unlocked the drawer.
Inside was a blue folder.
Our address was written across the front.
I opened it.
The first page looked like refinancing paperwork.
The second contained my name.
The third contained my signature.
Except I had never signed it.
I sat down hard.
Someone had copied my signature onto a document authorizing Michael to borrow against the house.
I kept reading.
Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
My vision blurred.
The loan had not been completed yet.
But the paperwork had been prepared.
Another folder contained bank statements from an account I had never seen.
Large deposits.
Large withdrawals.
Payments to a property company in Oak Brook.
Payments to Diane.
Payments to Lauren.
My hands began shaking.
A floorboard creaked downstairs.
I froze.
The front door closed.
“Sarah?”
Michael.
I shoved the papers into my bag.
His footsteps came up the stairs.
“Sarah?”
I locked the office door.
He tried the handle.
“Open the door.”
“No.”
“Please.”
I photographed every page I could.
He knocked harder.
“You shouldn’t be going through my things.”
I laughed.
“Your things?”
I photographed another statement.
“You forged my signature.”
Silence.
Then the handle moved again.
“I can explain that.”
I stopped.
Those four words had become poison.
“You can explain forgery?”
“It wasn’t finalized.”
“That’s your defense?”
“I was going to talk to you.”
“After taking two hundred and eighty thousand dollars?”
“It wasn’t for me.”
“Who was it for?”
He didn’t answer.
I photographed the Oak Brook lease.
Lauren’s name was listed as an authorized occupant.
My chest hurt.
“Is she living there?”
Michael said nothing.
I opened the office door.
He nearly stumbled forward.
For one second, we simply stared at each other.
Then he saw the documents in my hand.
His face drained.
“Give me those.”
“No.”
He reached.
I stepped back.
“Touch me and I call the police.”
He stopped.
I had never spoken to my husband like that.
I had never needed to.
“Sarah, the loan was to help Mom.”
“Why is Lauren on the apartment lease?”
His jaw tightened.
“She needed somewhere to stay.”
“She has an apartment.”
“She was having problems.”
“With what?”
He looked away.
I felt physically sick.
“You’re sleeping with her.”
“No.”
“Look at me and say it.”
He looked at me.
“I’m not sleeping with Lauren.”
Something in his expression was wrong.
Not innocence.
Technicality.
I knew Michael well enough to see it.
“Are you having an affair with her?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
I pushed past him.
He followed me downstairs.
“It started emotionally.”
I stopped at the bottom step.
I turned slowly.
“Emotionally.”
“I was struggling.”
“So you went to my sister.”
“She listened.”
“I listened to you for six years.”
“You were always focused on Emma, work, the house—”
The words hit me harder than Diane’s slap.
“My daughter needed me. My job helped pay for this house.”
“I’m not blaming you.”
“You just did.”
He rubbed his face.
“I made mistakes.”
“Mistakes don’t reserve Thursday nights.”
His phone rang.
Lauren again.
He ignored it.
I headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere you aren’t.”
“You can’t take Emma from me.”
I turned.
“Emma is my daughter.”
“I helped raise her.”
“And today I learned you taught her to lie to me.”
His face fell.
“I never meant to hurt her.”
“You did.”
I opened the door.
Michael’s voice followed me.
“There’s something else.”
I stopped.
I didn’t turn around.
“What?”
He swallowed.
“The apartment wasn’t only for Lauren.”
I faced him.
“Who else?”
His eyes filled with something close to shame.
“My mother.”
I frowned.
May you like
Then he said the words that made the entire scheme suddenly feel much bigger.
“She was going to lose her house.”
