Chapter 10 - The Second Phone
I had lived with David for twenty-eight years and never known he carried a second phone.
That fact embarrassed me at first.
Then I reminded myself that deception works because the deceiver spends more time designing it than the other person spends looking for it.
I had been living a marriage.
David had been managing an operation.
Melissa confirmed that he had carried the private phone for at least nine months.
"He said it was for confidential clients."
We were on a three-way call with Rachel the next morning.
"Did you ever use his regular number?"
"At first."
"Then what changed?"
"He told me Anne had become suspicious about work calls."
I almost interrupted.
Rachel stopped me with a look even though we were on video.
"Did he say why he needed the second phone for you?"
"He said he was protecting both of us from unnecessary drama."
I wrote the phrase down.
Protecting both of us.
David had called secrecy protection so often that I wondered whether he had started believing it himself.
"Do you have messages from that number?"
"Hundreds."
"Preserve them."
"I have."
"Do not delete anything, even messages that make you look bad."
Melissa gave a humorless laugh.
"Most of them make me look bad."
"Preserve those especially."
Rachel asked whether David ever used the phone for banking codes in front of her.
Melissa thought for a moment.
"Yes."
My skin prickled.
"When?"
"At the house showing."
"The waterfront house?"
"Yes."
"What did he do?"
"He got a text and said he needed to approve a bank verification."
"Did you see the amount?"
"No."
"Did you see the date?"
"It was the day we made the offer."
The offer date matched the date on the seventy-five-thousand-dollar transfer authorization.
Rachel wrote quickly.
"Who was present?"
"The real estate agent, David, and me."
"Name of the agent?"
Melissa provided it.
Rachel's paralegal began drafting another preservation notice before the call ended.
By noon, the bank confirmed the obvious part.
The disputed transfer had been authenticated by a code sent to the 9134 number.
That alone did not prove David had created the transaction.
It did prove the transaction was verified through a device he controlled.
The bank also provided access records showing the online banking profile had been changed from an internet connection associated with David's office.
I read the report in Rachel's conference room.
"Is that enough?"
"Enough for what?"
"To prove he did it."
Rachel folded her hands.
"It is evidence."
"You always say that."
"Because courts care about evidence, not satisfying sentences."
Karen laughed from the other side of the table.
"She used to be fun in law school."
"No, I didn't."
For half a second, the room felt normal.
Then Rachel's paralegal entered carrying another folder.
"The divorce petition is ready."
Normal disappeared again.
Rachel slid the document toward me.
I read my name.
I read David's.
I read the date of our marriage.
Twenty-eight years reduced to a line on a court form.
"Once I sign this, there is no pretending anymore."
Rachel looked at me.
"You can stop at any point before filing."
I thought about the wedding chair.
I thought about Emily signing a document she was told was a receipt.
I thought about my father's money.
I thought about Paul Greene carrying my computer records out of the house after midnight.
"File it."
I signed.
At 1:44 p.m., Rachel's office submitted the petition.
At 1:52, David called me.
I did not answer.
At 1:53, he called again.
At 1:54, he sent a text.
You filed for divorce without speaking to me?
I stared at the message.
Six months earlier, I would have written three paragraphs explaining myself.
I would have reminded him of the affair.
I would have explained the money.
I would have tried to make the sequence of cause and effect impossible to deny.
This time I wrote one sentence.
Please communicate through counsel regarding legal or financial matters.
His reply came instantly.
So that is what twenty-eight years means to you.
I did not answer.
Another message appeared.
You have no idea what I gave up for this family.
Then another.
When Emily realizes what your panic cost her, do not come to me.
I took screenshots and sent them to Rachel.
At 2:11, Melissa texted me.
He knows I am talking to you.
I called her.
"How?"
"He sent me one of my own screenshots."
"What?"
"The screenshot I sent you from the private phone."
I felt cold.
"How could he have it?"
"I don't know."
Rachel leaned forward.
"Ask whether her cloud account is shared with him."
I did.
Melissa went silent.
"We used a shared tablet at the lake house."
"What lake house?"
"His brother's place."
Robert again.
"Did you sign into your cloud account there?"
"Yes."
"Change your password now."
Melissa did it while we stayed on the line.
Then she made a sound that was half gasp, half laugh.
"What?"
"There is a device I do not recognize signed into my account."
"Location?"
"Near David's office."
Rachel spoke directly toward my phone.
"Screenshot the device list before you remove anything."
Melissa did.
"Now sign out all other devices."
She did that too.
I watched Rachel's face.
"Could he have been reading our messages?"
"Possibly."
"Then he knows everything."
"He may know what Melissa sent."
"That is everything."
Rachel shook her head.
"No."
"What doesn't he know?"
She closed the bank access report.
"He does not know what institutions will produce independently."
That became important sooner than any of us expected.
At 4:05, Carlisle Wealth called Rachel after receiving the preservation notice and my fraud report.
They had completed a preliminary access review.
The external authorization had been initiated from the same internet connection associated with David's office.
The verification code had been sent to the same 9134 number.
And the attempted four-hundred-thousand-dollar transfer had been followed by a call from that same phone.
Rachel asked whether the caller had been recorded.
Yes.
Could the recording be preserved?
It already was.
Could it be produced with proper legal process?
Yes.
Then the security officer told us something none of us had expected.
The man who called had not only identified himself as my husband.
He had claimed I was physically beside him and too upset to speak.
The officer had asked to hear my voice.
The caller had put a woman on the phone.
She had said, "Yes, I authorize the transfer."
My entire body went cold.
"Did the officer believe the woman was me?"
Rachel asked.
"Apparently not."
The security officer had noted that the woman failed two identity questions.
That was one reason the transfer had been stopped for manual review.
"Can they identify her?"
"Not yet."
I thought immediately of Melissa.
She was still on the video call.
Her face had gone white.
"It wasn't me."
I believed her.
Not because I trusted her.
Because she had been with me on the phone at the approximate time listed in the Carlisle report.
Rachel checked the time stamps.
She confirmed it.
"Then who was it?"
No one answered.
At 5:18, Claire called me.
Her voice was shaking.
"Anne, Robert just told me something."
"What?"
"David asked me to call Carlisle for him last week."
My heart seemed to stop.
"Did you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because he wanted me to pretend to be you."
The room went silent.
"Claire, who did he ask after you refused?"
She took a breath.
"I think I know."
"Who?"
"Robert."
I stared at the phone.
"His brother pretended to be me?"
"No."
Claire's next words were worse.
"Robert's daughter did."
I closed my eyes.
May you like
David had recruited his own niece to imitate my voice so he could reach my inheritance.
