Chapter 14: Behind Her Back

Ben's POV

At nine in the morning I stood in a hospital stairwell with my phone against my ear.

Upstairs the woman I had kissed two days ago was asleep with her son.

"Mr. Tolland," said the seller's lawyer from Fairmont Road. "I wasn't sure I should phone you."

"Go on."

"You represent Mrs. Marsden, not Mr. Marsden."

"I do."

"Then this is a courtesy."

I leaned my shoulder on the cold wall.

"Go ahead."

"Ms. Fraser came to my office yesterday afternoon."

"And?"

"She has a signed letter from Mr. Marsden, dated the twentieth of October."

I said nothing.

"It assigns his deposit to her outright. She wants it released to her account by Friday, house or no house."

"His thirty-eight thousand dollars."

"Yes."

"And Mr. Marsden?"

"He hasn't answered my calls. She says he agrees."

I closed my eyes.

Derek had told Hannah the deposit was his savings, and that he could not pull out without losing it.

He had not told her he had already signed it over.

Or he had signed it and forgotten, because someone who knew how to talk to him told him to.

Either way, in four days that money would be sitting in Colleen's account.

It was also the only money Derek had left.

His salary was gone.

The court had ordered him to support two children, and one of them weighed four pounds eleven ounces on the floor above me.

I thought about what Hannah had said at her kitchen table.

I'm not going to fix this.

She had meant it, and she had been right to mean it.

She had not asked me to fix it.

That was the whole problem.

If I did nothing, a woman who had lied to a court would walk away with the money meant for the baby.

If I did something, I would be doing it without my client's say-so, for the first time in my career.

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