Chapter 12: Fourteen Months

"The books?" I said. "Since the first quarter."

The chair's eyebrows lifted a quarter inch.

"I wrote the first check myself, at my father's desk, with a pen.

I knew the income was false the day I wrote it.

I wrote the next twenty-three to see what he'd do when he thought no one was looking."

"And the account?" she asked.

"I learned about the account on Wednesday."

"And the other matter."

The room waited for her to say the name and she didn't have to.

Darrell had lifted his head from his hands.

His eyes were glassy and fixed on me, and for the first time that week he did not look angry.

He looked like a man at the top of a staircase who has just felt the floor tilt.

"Fourteen months," I said.

Nadine put a folder on the table and slid it down the glass.

Winslow opened it to the first page.

A private investigator's letterhead. A date in August, fourteen months back, in a tidy black font.

Subject: Darrell Gaines. Associate: Jocelyn Vandenberg. Meetings, hotels, receipts.

The chair read the first line, turned the page, read the second, and closed the folder very gently.

"Fourteen months," she repeated.

"I learned in the first week," I said. "The Tuesday after my birthday."

Darrell's mouth moved.

"That's not true."

"On the first of September, I wired the draw."

"That's not true, Rhi."

"On the first of October last year, you took me to dinner and asked if I'd like to renew our vows.

Keep reading free with an account. Start After Divorce, My Ex-Wife Became a Billionaire from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.