After His Mistress Framed Me, My Husband Lost Everything novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Four Hundred Twelve Thousand

At the bank Deanna finds an account in her name that holds money from her husband's company, opened in March by a woman who signed her name, and a stranger waits in Joanna's lobby who says her father sent him.

The bank on Hennepin Avenue let me in without my card.

I had a license, and the manager recognized my name from the post.

She took us to a glass office and shut the door.

Her face was careful, and I could tell she had already been told what to think.

"Mrs. Hallstrom, I can't discuss details of an account while a fraud claim is open," she said.

"It's my account," I said. "Or it's supposed to be. Show me when it was opened."

"I'm not permitted to."

"Then tell me one thing. Was the signature on the card mine?"

She looked at her screen for a long moment.

"The account was opened on March 14 in person, with your license and your signature, as Deanna Dunleavy Hallstrom."

"I wasn't here."

"The record says you were."

"On March 14 I was in Duluth," I said. "My mother had her gallbladder out. I sat in that hospital from six in the morning until midnight."

Joanna's hand came down gently on my forearm.

"Don't argue with her," she said. "She can't change anything. Let's get what we need and go."

I opened my phone and scrolled back to March.

There was a photo of my mother in a paper gown holding up a cup of ice chips and grinning.

It was timestamped March 14, 11:02 a.m.

There was another from the waiting room at two, and another of the vending machine at nine that night.

"These are all from that day," I said, and turned the screen to the manager.

She took her time.

"They're not proof of where you were, only of where your phone was," she said, but she said it kindly.

"Then ask the branch for the camera footage."

"That would have to come from our security team."

"Then ask them."

"I'll put in the request," she said. "It can take two weeks."

Joanna typed notes into her phone.

"The money is still there," the manager added. "The full amount. The company's claim froze it Monday, so it can't move."

"Monday," I said. "Before any of this."

"Yes."

Monday was the day before Kinsley's posts.

I felt it then, plainly.

Someone had put the money in my name, and then they had waited to start the war.

Someone who knew I'd be in Duluth that day.

Joanna had known.

So had Gavin.

My mother had told half of her church.

I made myself stop there.

Joanna drove me to her building.

Her apartment was on the sixth floor, with a lemon tree in the window and a guest room I had slept in so often it had my shampoo in it.

She talked the whole way.

She said we'd call a lawyer, a friend of a friend, who did white-collar defense.

She said I should save all of my photos from that day on a thumb drive tonight.

She said I should delete my accounts so nobody could get into them, and she would do it for me if I gave her the passwords.

"I'll do it," I said. "Later."

"You're in no state to."

"I know. Later."

She went quiet, and then smiled.

"Okay, sweet pea," she said. "Later."

The elevator was out, so we took the stairs.

On the landing outside her door a man was sitting on the top step with his coat folded across his knees.

He stood when he saw us.

He was tall and somewhere in his thirties, with dark hair going gray at the temples and an old wool coat that was too good to have been bought recently.

He didn't smile.

"Mrs. Hallstrom," he said. "My name is Wyatt Corliss."

Joanna stepped in front of me.

"How did you find this address?"

"Deanna's mother gave it to me," he said. "She said Deanna would come here."

"My mother doesn't know anyone named Wyatt Corliss," I said.

"She does. She just doesn't remember me from the funeral. There were four hundred people."

"What funeral?"

He looked at me for a moment.

His eyes were gray and steady, and he didn't look ready to be chased off.

"Your father's," he said. "I carried the left side of the casket."

My throat closed.

"Ray sent me," Wyatt said. "He told me three years ago that if Gavin Hallstrom ever made you sign something, I should find you first."

Joanna's hand was tight on my sleeve.

"You need to leave," she said.

"Deanna," Wyatt said, past her. "Gavin froze your cards this morning, didn't he?"

I hadn't told a single person about the cards.

Not even Joanna.

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