Chapter 3 - RebeccaAt 10:15 Thursday morning, I parked across from Rebecca Lawson's condominium and watched my husband enter the building.
Not because I needed to understand what Nathan and Diane had said.
I understood perfectly.
I watched because part of me kept hoping the fifteenth time would reveal some tiny detail proving I had misunderstood.
Maybe Nathan would object.
Maybe Diane would say she was joking.
Maybe my husband would suddenly become the man I had married.
He didn't.
Every replay ended the same way.
Diane walked toward my bathroom.
Nathan watched the hallway.
Then they discussed taking my house, my company shares, and my inheritance as calmly as if they were dividing furniture after an estate sale.
Marcus sat beside me at my dining-room table that evening.
Nathan had texted that he would be "stuck at the office" until late.
I now understood what that phrase probably meant.
Marcus closed the laptop.
"You need an attorney."
"I need to know what they're doing first."
"You already know enough."
"No. I know what they want. I don't know how they intend to get it."
Marcus leaned back.
He had always disliked Nathan.
Not loudly.
Marcus wasn't the kind of man who announced opinions he couldn't support.
But three years into my marriage, he had pulled me aside after Thanksgiving dinner.
"He doesn't like that you can survive without him," he'd said.
At the time, I'd been furious.
Now I wished I'd listened.
"There's something else," I told him.
I opened our banking app.
For most of our marriage, Nathan and I had kept a shared household account while maintaining separate business accounts. I owned twenty-two percent of Mercer Development, the company Nathan had started with his father.
Or more accurately, the company I had rescued five years earlier when a failed commercial project nearly buried it.
My grandmother had left me a substantial inheritance.
I invested part of it into the company.
In exchange, I received equity protected by a shareholder agreement.
Nathan had hated signing it.
His father insisted.
"You protect the marriage by protecting the paperwork," George Mercer had told us.
George died eighteen months later.
And after his death, Diane became increasingly involved in everything.
Marcus studied the transfers.
$9,800.
$14,500.
$7,200.
Each labeled as consulting fees.
"Who is Bellweather Strategy?"
"I assumed it was one of Nathan's vendors."
Marcus searched the company registry.
Thirty seconds later, his expression hardened.
"It's registered to a mailbox."
"Owner?"
"An LLC owns it."
"Which LLC?"
He clicked again.
"Another LLC."
I almost laughed.
"That's subtle."
"It isn't meant to be subtle forever. It's meant to be exhausting."
He looked at the dates.
"How long has this been happening?"
"At least seven months."
"And you never noticed?"
"I trusted my husband."
Marcus didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
I walked to the kitchen window.
Nathan and I had bought the house four years earlier.
Technically, I had purchased most of it.
My inheritance funded the down payment.
My consulting income covered the renovations.
Nathan loved telling people he'd bought his wife her dream home.
I had let him.
Marriage sometimes involved letting the person you loved tell harmless stories that made him feel important.
Except apparently Nathan had started believing his own.
"Can you trace Bellweather?"
Marcus shook his head.
"Not legally beyond public records. We need a forensic accountant."
"I know one."
His eyebrows rose.
"Of course you do."
I smiled without humor.
I worked in corporate risk management.
For twelve years, companies had hired me to identify fraud, internal theft, and governance failures.
That was the irony.
I had spent my career finding deception everywhere except inside my own marriage.
The next morning, I called Olivia Chen.
Olivia was a forensic accountant with the patience of a librarian and the instincts of a bloodhound.
I told her only enough to make her interested.
She agreed to meet at lunch.
By 1:00 p.m., she had already found something Marcus and I missed.
"These transfers aren't only coming from your household account," she said.
We sat in the corner of a quiet restaurant.
She rotated her tablet toward me.
"They're also coming from Mercer Development."
My chest tightened.
"How much?"
"Based on what you've given me? About four hundred and eighty thousand dollars."
I stared at her.
"That can't be right."
"It's probably higher."
"Nathan would need authorization for some of these."
"He has authorization."
"Not for payments above fifty thousand."
Olivia tapped the screen.
"They keep them below the threshold."
Of course.
She continued.
"And there are reimbursements. Travel. Equipment. Consulting retainers. Marketing services."
"Fake?"
"Some definitely appear suspicious."
"Where is the money going?"
"Bellweather Strategy is one destination. Another is Alder Creek Holdings."
I knew that name.
Diane had mentioned Alder Creek months earlier.
She claimed it was an investment group interested in buying property near Lake Norman.
"Who owns Alder Creek?"
"Working on it."
My phone buzzed.
Nathan.
Dinner tonight? Mom wants to come over.
I stared at the message.
My husband wanted to have dinner with me while secretly planning to strip away everything I owned.
I typed:
Sounds great.
Olivia watched.
"You can do that?"
"Do what?"
"Act normal."
"Right now normal is the most useful thing I have."
That evening, Diane arrived carrying wine.
Nathan grilled steaks.
I made salad.
We ate on the patio beneath string lights, exactly like the family we had pretended to be for years.
Diane complimented my dress.
Nathan asked about work.
Then halfway through dinner, Diane casually said, "You know, Elena, you've seemed stressed lately."
I put down my fork.
"Have I?"
"Just distracted."
Nathan glanced at her.
A signal.
Small.
But I saw it.
Diane continued.
"Maybe you should take some time away."
"From work?"
"From everything."
She smiled.
"A wellness retreat."
I nearly choked.
"Where?"
"Arizona. There's a wonderful place outside Sedona."
Nathan jumped in.
"Mom's right. You work too much."
A wellness retreat.
They wanted me out of the house.
"Maybe," I said.
Diane's eyes brightened.
"I could arrange it."
"I'm sure you could."
After dinner, I excused myself to take a work call.
Instead, I stood inside the hallway and opened the security feed on my phone.
Nathan and Diane remained on the patio.
The microphone couldn't capture everything through the glass.
But it caught enough.
"She's suspicious," Nathan said.
"She isn't."
"You didn't see her face."
"Stop panicking."
"Maybe we should forget the camera."
Diane leaned closer.
"We've already spent too much."
Spent?
Nathan lowered his voice.
"What about Rebecca?"
I froze.
Diane sighed.
"She'll keep quiet."
"She wants more money."
"Then pay her."
My hands went cold.
Who was Rebecca?
Nathan rubbed his forehead.
"If Elena finds out Rebecca exists, we're finished."
Diane replied instantly.
"Then make sure she doesn't."
I stepped backward.
My shoulder touched the wall.
For seven months, money had been disappearing.
A secret company was receiving funds.
They had planted a camera in my bathroom.
And now there was a woman named Rebecca who could apparently destroy them.
I returned to the patio five minutes later smiling.
"Sorry. Work emergency."
Nathan reached across the table and touched my hand.
"You should really consider that retreat."
I looked down at his fingers.
The same hand that had held mine during our wedding.
The same hand that had wiped tears from my face when my grandmother died.
The same hand that was apparently helping his mother rob me.
"I'll think about it."
He smiled.
Diane smiled.
I smiled.
Three liars at one table.
The difference was that only two of them believed they were winning.
The next morning, Olivia called.
"I found Alder Creek's beneficial owner."
I gripped my phone.
"Who?"
There was a pause.
"You aren't going to like this."
"Tell me."
"Alder Creek Holdings is controlled through a trust."
"Whose trust?"
"Rebecca Lawson."
The name hit me like cold water.
"Do you know her?" Olivia asked.
Unfortunately, I did.
Rebecca Lawson wasn't a stranger.
She had been Nathan's executive assistant for three years.
And six months ago, Nathan told me she had suddenly moved to Florida.
Except according to the corporate filing Olivia had found—
Rebecca hadn't moved anywhere.
May you like
She had bought a condo twenty minutes from my house.
And Mercer Development had paid for it.
Related Stories
