Bankrupting My Husband's Fake Perfect Family novel · Chapter 2 of 16

Chapter 2: Zero Eight One Four

At 2 a.m. Erin cracks Brian's laptop with his secret son's birthday, pays Mia five hundred dollars for a fake tutor, and hangs up with her lawyer to find Brian in the doorway.

Brian was snoring by one.

I lay beside him in the dark and counted to three hundred anyway.

Then I got up and went down the hall in my socks.

His office door stuck at the bottom. I lifted it as I pushed so it wouldn't scrape.

I held a penlight in my teeth.

He kept a silver backup laptop under a stack of old tax returns in the bottom drawer.

I knew because I was the one who used to file those returns.

Before Liam was born, I spent ten years as a senior forensic auditor.

I found money people swore wasn't there.

Brian had apparently forgotten that.

I opened the laptop.

The screen lit my hands blue.

Password.

I tried his mother's maiden name. Wrong.

I thought about a little boy on a beach.

A boy who looked five.

Summer birthdays got pictures on beaches.

I typed 0814. August fourteenth, the day Brian flew to Denver every year for a "conference."

The desktop opened.

"You idiot," I whispered.

The folders were hidden.

It took me three minutes.

The first folder was called Cayman.

I clicked it.

Wire transfers filled the screen.

Two companies I had never heard of. Harbor Line Holdings. Westgate Dispatch LLC.

Money went into them from our savings, then out again to an account on Grand Cayman.

I added it in my head as I scrolled.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

Our joint savings had held $212,000 in June. Most of it was here.

The next folder was called House.

A deed filled the screen.

14 Larkspur Court, Oak Creek. Four bedrooms.

Owner: Danielle Haskins.

Paid in full. $640,000.

So that was her name.

I opened the third folder. Corporate.

Brian was the CFO of Kessler Freight. I knew what he earned. I had done our taxes for sixteen years.

These spreadsheets were not his salary.

He was billing the company for trucks that didn't exist.

Maintenance on routes nobody drove.

The money ran to Westgate Dispatch and then to Cayman.

Four years of it.

$1.8 million.

I took a black flash drive out of my robe pocket and pushed it into the port.

Copying. Four minutes remaining.

A board creaked in the hallway.

I dimmed the screen to black.

The door swung wider and the hall light came in across the rug.

"Mom?"

Mia stood there in her silk pajamas, rubbing one eye.

"What are you doing in Dad's office?"

I kept my hands flat on the desk.

"Couldn't sleep. You?"

"Water."

She came a step in. Her eyes went to the edge of the laptop, then to me.

"Are you working?"

"Balancing the checkbook. Since you guys are off to the lake."

"Oh." She shifted her weight. "Actually. Since you're doing money stuff."

"Yes?"

"I need my tutoring money for next month."

I looked at her.

She held her hand out, palm up, like a waiter.

"Tutoring," I said.

"Chemistry. Mr. Farragut says I need weekend sessions."

"Since when do you need a chemistry tutor?"

"Since the midterm. I got a C."

"You told me you got an A."

"I lied so you wouldn't freak out."

"How much?"

"Five hundred."

"For one month."

"He's the best in the district. Do you want me to fail?"

Her chin went up. She was daring me.

"Is it really for chemistry, Mia?"

"Oh my God. Yes. Why are you interrogating me?"

I opened the top drawer.

Under the envelopes was the emergency money I kept for the plumber and the snow guy.

I pulled out five hundred-dollar bills and held them up.

She took them without a word.

She folded them into her pajama pocket.

"Study hard," I said.

"Yep." She was wide awake now. "Night."

She padded back down the hall.

She had needed exactly one lie, and she had it ready.

I shut the drawer.

The laptop chimed softly.

Transfer complete.

I pulled the drive and put it in my pocket.

My phone buzzed against my hip.

Unknown number.

I answered with my hand cupped over it.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Brennan." The voice was deep and rough, like he'd been asleep. "Sebastian Reed. My assistant forwarded your text."

"Thank you for calling."

"It's two in the morning. I assume you don't want to discuss alimony."

"I have his bank records," I said. "Offshore accounts. A house for his girlfriend. And he's stealing from his company."

He was quiet for a second.

"He kept that on a computer in your house?"

"He thinks I can't read a spreadsheet."

"Can you?"

"I was a forensic auditor for ten years. I've testified. Twice."

"Brennan," he said slowly. "Erin Brennan. The Dayton transit case."

"That was me."

"I used your report in a deposition in 2011." He gave a short, quiet laugh. "Tell me the numbers."

"Five hundred thousand to Grand Cayman through two shells. $212,000 of it from our savings."

"A $640,000 house in Oak Creek in the girlfriend's name. And $1.8 million skimmed from Kessler Freight over four years."

"Upload it to the link I'm texting you. My team will have it apart by breakfast."

"Okay."

"Erin, if the company learns about the theft, he loses his job. Maybe his freedom."

"Yes."

"That means less money for you to split in the divorce."

"I don't care about splitting it," I said. "I want it all back. I want him to have nothing."

"You understand this is enough to put him in prison."

"I understand."

"Then the question isn't whether we can destroy him," Sebastian said. "It's how far you want to take it."

I looked at the photo on Brian's desk.

The four of us at Pine Ridge, eight years ago. All smiling.

"All the way," I said.

The overhead light snapped on.

I turned.

Brian stood in the doorway in his boxers, squinting at me.

"Erin," he said. "What the hell are you doing at my desk?"

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