Chapter 8 - HIS VERSION OF THE STORY
Rachel Kim read Gavin's divorce petition in silence.
She did not look shocked.
That frightened me more than shock would have.
"He moved quickly," she said.
"He filed before I even met you."
"Yes."
"Can he get what he's asking for?"
"Asking is not getting."
I hated how much I needed to hear that.
Rachel flipped to the affidavit attached to the petition.
"This is more important."
I leaned forward.
Gavin had sworn under penalty of perjury that I had become emotionally unstable during pregnancy.
He claimed I was making impulsive financial decisions.
He claimed I had closed accounts without warning.
He claimed I had removed property from the home.
He claimed I had threatened to keep him from his child.
He claimed he feared I would dissipate marital assets.
I stared at the page.
"He emptied the account."
"We have records."
"He took the furniture."
"We have photographs."
"He changed the locks."
"We have the landlord and police documentation."
"He forged my signature."
"That is being investigated."
I looked at Rachel.
"Then how can he write this?"
"Anyone can write allegations in a filing."
"And a judge reads them."
"Yes."
"What if the judge believes him?"
Rachel leaned back.
"Then we answer with evidence."
She sounded almost bored.
I realized that was deliberate.
Gavin's words felt like a bomb to me.
To her, they were claims waiting for exhibits.
"He says I am unstable."
"He also says you closed a joint savings account without mentioning the balance was sixty-three dollars."
"He says I removed property."
"He does not mention changing the locks."
"He says I am hiding money."
"We will request full financial disclosure from both sides."
That finally made me breathe easier.
Full disclosure.
If Gavin wanted a courtroom, he would have to bring numbers into it.
Rachel filed my response that afternoon.
She attached the bank transaction history, the landlord's email, the police report, and photographs of the nursery wall.
She did not attach everything.
"Why not the forged loan?"
"Because the criminal investigation is ongoing and I don't want to interfere."
"What about the hidden insurance letters?"
"We'll use them when relevant."
I wanted every piece of evidence thrown at him at once.
Rachel wanted sequence.
"Court is not a social media argument," she said when I complained.
"You do not win by posting the largest pile first."
A temporary hearing was scheduled for five days later.
Five days.
At thirty-six weeks pregnant, five days felt both microscopic and enormous.
I went to my obstetrician the next morning for a blood pressure check.
It was elevated.
Not emergency high.
High enough to get a long look from my doctor.
"Stress?"
I laughed.
She did not.
"Audrey, I need you to take this seriously."
"I am."
"No, I mean your health."
She asked more questions.
Headaches.
Vision changes.
Upper abdominal pain.
Swelling.
The answers were mostly reassuring.
She scheduled an additional monitoring visit.
Then she asked whether I wanted Gavin removed as my emergency contact.
I stared at the form.
His name had been there since we married.
I crossed it out.
I wrote MARLENE ELLISON.
Relationship: mother-in-law.
Then I stopped.
Soon, perhaps, she would no longer technically be that.
Marlene saw me hesitate.
"Write family."
I looked at her.
"They won't accept that."
The nurse smiled.
"Actually, we can."
So I wrote it.
Family.
The next surprise arrived that afternoon.
Carmen called from work.
"Audrey, did you request a verification of employment letter?"
"No."
"Someone did."
My skin prickled.
"Who?"
"The request came through an online lender."
"In my name?"
"Yes."
I stood up from Marlene's couch.
"Today?"
"Yesterday."
Even after the credit freeze.
Even after the police report.
Someone was still trying.
Carmen continued.
"HR did not provide anything because the authorization signature did not match what we have on file."
"Can you send me the request?"
"I already asked legal."
"Thank you."
"Audrey, the form lists a requested loan amount."
I closed my eyes.
"How much?"
"Twenty-five thousand dollars."
My free hand went to my stomach.
"What lender?"
She told me.
Another online finance company.
"Was there a phone number?"
"Yes."
"Whose?"
"I don't know, but it is not yours."
I called Detective Reese.
He asked HR to preserve the request.
Then he told me something else.
"We identified the contact saved as D on the prepaid phone."
My pulse jumped.
"Who is it?"
"A man named Darren Cole."
"Do I know him?"
"I don't know. Do you?"
The name meant nothing.
"No."
"He works as an independent casino host and debt intermediary in Nevada."
Marlene sat down hard in the armchair.
"Debt intermediary?"
"He connects high-value gamblers with credit arrangements and private repayment options."
"Is that legal?"
"Some of it can be. Some of it may not be. We're looking."
"Does Gavin owe him money?"
"The messages suggest Gavin owed money to someone Darren was coordinating with."
"How much?"
Reese hesitated.
"At least forty thousand dollars."
The room went silent.
Forty thousand.
I thought about the nineteen thousand from savings.
The fifteen-thousand-dollar loan.
The eleven-thousand-dollar credit card.
Marlene's twelve thousand.
The numbers were beginning to overlap.
"How long has this been happening?"
"The messages on the phone go back about ten months."
Ten months.
Before I knew I was pregnant.
Before the baby fund grew.
Before Gavin asked his mother for money.
"Did he lose his job because of gambling?"
"We don't know yet."
"Did he steal from work?"
"We have no evidence of that."
I appreciated the precision.
No speculation.
No filling gaps just because the story already looked ugly.
Then Reese said, "There is one more thing."
I closed my eyes.
Of course there was.
"What?"
"The prepaid phone contains a draft text Gavin never sent."
"To who?"
"Darren."
"What does it say?"
Reese read it slowly.
"After the baby comes, I'll have access to the trust."
I opened my eyes.
"What trust?"
Marlene went completely still.
I turned toward her.
Her face had lost all color.
"Marlene?"
She did not answer.
"What trust?"
She looked at me.
I had heard about Frank's estate only in vague family stories.
The hardware stores.
A small commercial building sold after his death.
Investments Marlene managed conservatively.
Gavin had always complained that his father believed in "dead-hand control," rules that kept money tied up after death.
At family dinners, I thought it was ordinary resentment between a son and a careful father.
Now those old comments sounded different.
"He used to joke that Dad trusted paperwork more than people," Marlene said.
"Did Frank trust Gavin?"
She took a long breath.
"He loved him."
"That wasn't my question."
Marlene looked at me.
"Not with money."
The answer landed heavily.
"Why?"
"Gavin was twenty-one when Frank first discovered he had taken cash advances on a card to gamble online."
I stared at her.
"Twenty-one?"
"It was small then. A few thousand. Frank paid it off once and made him attend counseling."
"Once?"
"Once. Frank refused the second time."
"There was a second time?"
She nodded.
I felt anger rise again.
"Why didn't you tell me before I married him?"
Marlene flinched.
I regretted the cruelty immediately, but not the question.
"I thought it was over," she said.
"How long had it been?"
"Years."
"Did Gavin tell you it was over?"
"Yes."
We both went silent.
There was the same mistake again.
Believing the person with the strongest reason to hide the truth.
Marlene wiped her eyes.
"Frank designed the trust because he wanted grandchildren protected from exactly this kind of instability."
The cruelty of that nearly took my breath.
A dead man had anticipated a risk his son spent years convincing everyone no longer existed.
May you like
And now my unborn daughter sat at the center of a financial plan built around defeating those protections.
Then she whispered, "My husband's estate."
