Chapter 15: Concerned Employee

Brennan's phone started buzzing at ten to seven and did not stop.

I came down in my robe and found him at the kitchen island with his laptop open and his coffee going cold.

"Come look at this," he said, without turning around.

It was an email, sent to the whole Hartwell board at 2:14 that morning.

The sender was a name I did not know, and the subject line said: Concerned employee, urgent.

Under it was a video.

He pressed play.

It was grainy footage from the camera in our study, from the night before the wedding.

A woman in a robe stood over the desk with a phone in her hand.

She was bent over a stack of papers, and the phone was aimed straight down at them.

It was me.

The clip was short, and it ended with me turning the phone off and slipping it into my pocket.

"That's cut," I said.

"I know."

"I was never photographing anything. You were asleep in that chair. I put your coat over you."

"I remember." His voice was rough. "I woke up with the coat on and thought I'd dreamed it."

He scrolled down.

The message under the video said that Mrs. Corrigan had been photographing Mr. Hartwell's private draft agreement and passing it to a rival buyer.

There was a second attachment, a spreadsheet.

"What's that?"

"Payroll," Brennan said.

A line was highlighted in yellow.

It was a monthly household reimbursement of nine thousand four hundred dollars, paid into an account in my name, with fourteen receipts.

"I haven't filed one receipt," I said. "I don't even have that account."

"It was approved under my login on Friday."

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