Chapter 13 - The Hartwell Account
Leonard Pike did not like giving opinions before he had documents.
That was why his reaction to the name Hartwell frightened me.
"What is it?" I asked.
We were on a video call with Evelyn and Rachel.
Leonard adjusted his glasses.
"Hartwell Development is one of Derek's employer's largest regional clients."
"How do you know that?"
"Public filings and industry work."
He looked down at his notes.
"Their Columbus redevelopment project involved millions in vendor spending last year."
Rachel leaned forward.
"And Derek had access?"
"Possibly to client-development budgets and reimbursable expenses."
Evelyn raised a hand.
"Let's stay with what we know."
Leonard nodded.
"What we know is that D.W. Consulting received transfers labeled as reimbursements tied to client-development categories."
"And Helen referenced the Hartwell account."
"Correct."
"Could Derek have stolen money?"
Leonard did not answer immediately.
"Could is doing a lot of work in that sentence."
I sighed.
"You and Evelyn should start a club."
Neither laughed.
That told me enough.
The next step did not come from us.
It came from Alyssa.
Her attorney notified her father, Richard Grant, that her name had been added to D.W. Consulting and that company reimbursements had entered the account.
Richard was not only Alyssa's father.
He was regional vice president at Derek's company.
By the next morning, internal compliance had frozen Derek's expense access.
At noon, he was placed on paid administrative leave.
At 12:17, the parenting app exploded.
You contacted my employer.
I did not answer.
Then:
You are trying to destroy my ability to support Emily.
Then:
This is parental alienation and financial sabotage.
I forwarded the messages to Evelyn.
She responded with one instruction.
Do not engage.
Derek kept going.
You have no idea what you just started.
I stared at that sentence longer than the others.
Rachel saw my face.
"What?"
"That's what he always says before he wants me to be afraid of the next thing."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
I hated admitting it.
Rachel sat beside me.
"Good."
I gave her a look.
"You have a strange definition of good."
"Fear is useful if it makes you lock doors and call lawyers."
She held up my phone.
"It is useless if it makes you go back."
That afternoon, Martin sent a formal letter accusing us of improperly interfering with Derek's employment.
Evelyn replied with a short factual timeline.
Neither Megan nor counsel had contacted the employer.
Alyssa had acted through her own attorney.
The financial records had been obtained in court-ordered discovery.
Any employment consequences were separate from the custody proceeding.
Martin did not respond.
Instead, Derek canceled his next supervised visit.
Reason: work emergency.
The irony was almost unbearable.
Two days later, he canceled again.
Reason: attorney conference.
Claire documented both cancellations.
The third visit, he attended.
He looked terrible.
Unshaven.
Dark circles beneath his eyes.
No polished suit.
No expensive diaper bag.
He wore jeans and the gray sweater I had given him our first Christmas.
For one dangerous second, I remembered loving him.
Not the marriage.
Him.
The man who once drove through a snowstorm to bring me soup when I had the flu.
The man who used to sing badly in the car just to make me laugh.
The man who cried when the first pregnancy test turned positive.
That man had not been imaginary.
He had simply not been the whole man.
Derek looked at Emily in my arms.
"Can I hold her?"
Claire nodded.
I handed her over.
He took Emily carefully.
His face crumpled.
Not theatrically.
Not for court.
He turned away from us and pressed his forehead against her blanket.
I heard him whisper, "Daddy's sorry."
My chest tightened.
Claire glanced at me.
I looked away.
The visit lasted forty-five quiet minutes.
Derek did not ask about my emotional state.
He did not make claims.
He changed a diaper.
He fed Emily a bottle of expressed milk.
He rocked her until she slept.
When the visit ended, he handed her back to Claire.
Then he asked, "Can I speak to Megan with you here?"
Claire looked at me.
I nodded.
Derek stood six feet away.
"I didn't know about the Hartwell money."
I said nothing.
"Alyssa handled some of the reimbursements."
"Talk to your lawyer."
"I'm talking to my wife."
"No."
The word came out before I planned it.
His face changed.
"No what?"
"You are talking to the person you're divorcing."
The room went still.
I had not filed the divorce petition yet.
But saying it aloud made it real.
Derek's eyes filled with something I could not name.
"You don't mean that."
"I do."
"Because of one night?"
I almost laughed.
"Derek, the one night is just the first night I stopped explaining the rest away."
He shook his head.
"Rachel has poisoned you."
Claire's pen moved.
"No."
"Alyssa?"
"No."
"That lawyer?"
"No."
I adjusted Emily against my chest.
"You did this."
His expression hardened.
There it was again.
The familiar shift.
Pain becoming blame before it could become responsibility.
"You think I did all of this alone?"
"I think you did your part."
He stepped closer.
Claire immediately moved between us.
"Mr. Walsh."
Derek stopped.
His voice dropped.
"You know what happens if I lose my job?"
"No."
"You lose too."
"Then we will deal with that."
He stared at me.
"There is no we anymore."
"Exactly."
For the first time, he had said the truth before I did.
He left without another word.
That night, Helen called me directly.
I almost ignored it.
Then I remembered the Hartwell message.
I answered and immediately told her the call was being documented.
"Fine," she said.
Her voice sounded exhausted.
"I need you to understand what you're doing to my son."
"I didn't contact his employer."
"Alyssa did because of you."
"Alyssa made her own decision."
"She would never have turned on him if you hadn't run away."
There it was.
Derek's world had no independent actors.
Only people causing other people to act.
"What is the Hartwell account, Helen?"
Silence.
I regretted asking the moment the words left my mouth.
Evelyn had told me not to investigate Helen.
But Helen answered.
"I don't know."
"You texted my mother about it."
A sharp inhale.
"She showed you that?"
"Yes."
Helen went quiet.
Then she said, "Derek told me there was an accounting problem at work."
"When?"
"Months ago."
My pulse quickened.
"Before Emily was born?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"That people were trying to blame him for missing funds."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Did he ask you for money?"
Helen did not answer.
That was an answer.
"How much?"
"This isn't your business."
"He moved twenty-nine thousand dollars out of our accounts while telling me we couldn't afford a rocking chair."
"He was protecting his family."
"From what?"
Helen's voice rose.
"From exactly this."
"From me finding out?"
"From everything collapsing because you couldn't leave well enough alone."
The words hung there.
Not because they made sense.
Because they revealed how Helen thought.
If nobody uncovered a problem, the problem did not exist.
If nobody challenged Derek, the family stayed intact.
My silence seemed to make her nervous.
"Megan?"
"Did you know about Alyssa?"
"No."
The answer was immediate.
I believed it.
"Did you know he was planning to file for custody if I left?"
Another pause.
"He asked what I would do if you became difficult after the baby."
My stomach tightened.
"When?"
"I don't remember."
"Before or after he created the LLC?"
"I said I don't remember."
Then she hung up.
I saved the call notes and sent them to Evelyn.
She called me ten minutes later.
"I told you not to question her about Hartwell."
"I know."
"Why did you?"
"Because she called me and I was angry."
Evelyn sighed.
"Thank you for telling me exactly what happened."
I waited for a lecture.
It did not come.
"Do not do it again."
"I won't."
"The useful part is that Helen confirmed Derek discussed an accounting problem months ago and discussed possible custody conflict before Emily's birth."
"Can we use it?"
"Maybe."
I groaned.
Evelyn almost laughed.
The Hartwell issue broke open three days later.
Alyssa's attorney provided company investigators with messages showing Derek had instructed her to approve client-development expenses for events she did not attend.
Nora provided records through her own counsel showing Derek sometimes asked her to change expense descriptions after submission.
Compliance found that several reimbursements tied to Hartwell did not match vendor invoices.
The amount under review was not millions.
It was eighty-six thousand dollars.
Still enough.
Derek was suspended without access to company systems.
His corporate attorney told Martin that the family case was now creating discovery risks in the employment investigation.
Martin withdrew as counsel two days later.
The official reason was a conflict unrelated to the merits.
Evelyn explained that Martin's firm had formed D.W. Consulting and represented Derek on other business matters.
Now the company transactions were under investigation.
Continuing to represent him in family court could become complicated.
Derek hired a new attorney.
Her name was Caroline Price.
She was younger than Martin, sharper in court, and much less interested in protecting Derek's feelings.
Her first filing was only six pages.
It asked the court to separate employment allegations from parenting issues.
It acknowledged the edited audio should not have been submitted without the full context.
And it requested a gradual move from supervised visits to short unsupervised visits based on Derek's positive reports.
Evelyn read it and nodded.
"This lawyer is better."
That was not what I wanted to hear.
"Better for who?"
"For him."
"Great."
"Also possibly better for the case."
"How?"
"She may stop turning every marital grievance into a custody weapon."
I looked at Emily.
"And if she succeeds?"
"Then we deal with the actual parenting evidence."
I did not like how fair that sounded.
The next hearing was five days away.
On the morning before it, Caroline filed one final exhibit.
Not a recording.
Not a bank statement.
A private investigator's report.
The investigator had followed Rachel and me for nine days.
There were photographs of me leaving the pediatrician.
Photographs of Rachel buying groceries.
Photographs of my mother carrying Emily's car seat.
Photographs of me sitting alone in a coffee shop for twenty-three minutes while Rachel watched Emily.
The report described that last photograph as:
Mother separated from newborn child for nonessential personal activity.
I stared at the page until my anger became almost funny.
Twenty-three minutes.
Coffee.
That was their evidence.
Then I reached the final page.
The investigator had photographed a man entering Rachel's house late one evening.
The caption identified him as unknown adult male.
I knew exactly who he was.
May you like
My ex-boyfriend from college.
And I had no idea why he had been at Rachel's house.
