Chapter 3 - The Morning Call
Valerie called at 8:07 the next morning.
I was drinking coffee beside the hotel window.
“Why are all my accounts frozen?”
No hello.
No queen.
Just panic wrapped in anger.
“Good morning, Valerie.”
“Don’t play games with me. My cards don’t work. The transfer I made yesterday is locked. The bank won’t tell me anything.”
“Have you asked Anton?”
“He says you’re having some kind of breakdown.”
I watched a delivery truck stop at the curb below.
“Then he should have no trouble explaining the paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
“The agreement he signed when I financed the company. The ownership records. The restrictions on moving company money into personal accounts.”
She went quiet.
I set down my coffee.
“The cards were supplementary cards, Valerie. They were never yours. And the accounts holding money diverted from the company are subject to the order my attorney obtained this morning.”
“You can’t do that.”
“My attorney and the judge seem to disagree.”
“That’s my money.”
“Then you’ll have an opportunity to show where it came from.”
I heard movement on her end.
A door.
Anton’s voice.
“Give me the phone.”
A second later, he was breathing into my ear.
“What the hell did you do?”
“Read your agreements.”
“I’m going to sue you.”
“You’ll have company.”
“You think you can destroy everything I built because I stopped loving you?”
There it was again.
His favorite version.
My jealousy.
His success.
No mention of missing money or a signature I had never written.
“This isn’t about who you sleep with,” I said. “It’s about what you took.”
“You gave me that company.”
“I invested in it.”
“You never acted like an owner.”
“I trusted you to act like a husband.”
Silence.
For one brief, stupid second, I wanted an apology.
Not enough to take him back.
Just enough to prove I hadn’t imagined every decent thing about him.
Instead, he said, “You’ll regret humiliating me.”
I ended the call.
My phone rang again immediately.
This time, it was my manager at the investment bank.
“Clara,” Daniel said, “I need you to come in.”
Something in his voice made me stand.
“What happened?”
“We received an allegation about your outside investments.”
“What allegation?”
“That you used confidential client information to finance your husband’s company.”
I looked at the yellow note on the desk.
SIGN, AND KEEP YOUR JOB.
May you like
Anton hadn’t been threatening to tell the truth.
He had been warning me what lie came next.
