Chapter 3 - Thirty-Eight Transfers
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Patricia sat down hard.
“How much?”
Robert repeated the question into the phone.
His expression changed before he answered us.
“Forty-eight thousand dollars.”
Daniel immediately shook his head.
“That’s not what it looks like.”
I stared at him.
Forty-eight thousand.
I had found fifteen thousand from our personal accounts.
Now there was another forty-eight thousand from his father’s company.
Robert ended the call.
“You stole from me.”
“I borrowed it.”
“You hid it.”
“I was going to replace it.”
“With what?”
Daniel looked around the ballroom.
His coworkers were pretending not to listen.
His relatives were not pretending at all.
He leaned toward his father.
“Can we please do this somewhere else?”
Robert laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You were happy to stand in this room twenty minutes ago and tell everyone what kind of man you are.”
His voice became quiet.
“Now they can find out.”
Daniel turned on me.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“No.”
I lifted Lily’s bag onto my shoulder.
“I wanted my husband not to steal from our daughter and lie to me.”
He stepped closer.
“You’ve been planning this.”
“Yes.”
The honesty shocked him more than denial would have.
I continued.
“I met a lawyer four months ago.”
His face changed.
Patricia looked at me.
“You knew for four months?”
“I knew enough.”
Daniel’s eyes became calculating.
“What exactly did your lawyer tell you?”
That question mattered.
Too much.
I felt it instantly.
He was no longer worried about Chloe.
He was worried about what I knew financially.
I did not answer.
Instead, I walked toward my mother.
She handed Lily to me without asking a single question.
My mother had known something was wrong.
She had not known what.
When she saw my face, she simply kissed my forehead.
Daniel followed us.
“You are not taking Lily anywhere.”
I turned.
“She’s going home with me.”
“That is my home too.”
“Not tonight.”
His voice rose.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
A man near the entrance moved toward us.
At first, I thought he was hotel security.
Then I recognized him.
David Mercer.
My attorney.
Daniel recognized him a second later.
His mouth fell open.
David had attended the baptism as my mother’s guest.
That had been intentional.
David walked over calmly.
“Daniel, Jennifer will be taking Lily home tonight.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You brought a lawyer to my daughter’s baptism?”
David answered before I could.
“Your wife brought protection.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“Protection from what?”
David reached inside his jacket.
“From this.”
He handed Daniel an envelope.
Daniel looked down.
His name was printed across the front.
“What is it?”
“Temporary financial restraining orders filed yesterday.”
Daniel’s eyes snapped toward me.
“You froze our money?”
“Only what legally belongs to both of us.”
His breathing became shallow.
Then David said something I had not expected him to say publicly.
“There is also a second matter.”
I looked at him.
David’s expression told me something had changed.
“What second matter?”
He lowered his voice.
“My investigator found Chloe this morning.”
My stomach tightened.
Daniel went silent.
David continued.
“She says Daniel lied to her too.”
I looked at Daniel.
For the first time, he looked genuinely confused.
Then David gave me the sentence that changed everything.
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“Jennifer, Chloe says Daniel told her that you and Lily were moving overseas next month.”
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