The Paper Trail novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Nude Patent Leather
Ella finds her friend's heels under the entry table and her husband in the study with her, films it, sends it to the friend's husband, and demands her $310,000 back; a text sends her driving home.
The other woman's shoes were under my entry table.
They were nude patent leather with pointed toes, and the red soles were scuffed from wear.
I knew them without looking up.
Daphne Rhodes had worn those shoes to brunch with me on Saturday.
She had crossed her ankles under the table and let me pay for the mimosas.
I stood in my own front hall with my keys still in my hand.
The house was quiet.
A lamp was on in Judson's study, and the door was open a hand's width.
Judson had told me he would be at the warehouse until nine.
It was ten past seven.
I put my keys down on the table, very softly, next to her shoes.
Then I heard a woman's low, helpless laugh.
I knew that laugh too.
I walked to the study door and looked through the gap.
My husband stood in front of his desk with his shirt open and his belt undone.
Daphne sat on the edge of the desk, my friend of four years, with her knees open around his hips.
His hand was between her legs, and she had her head back against the lamp.
I could hear all of it.
I stood there with my pulse in my ears and could not make my feet move.
Then he said her name, low and easy, in the voice he used to use on me.
"Let me take care of you," he said.
He moved against her, and she cried out.
My eyes stung, and I let them.
But my hand was already in my bag, and it came out holding my phone.
I turned on the camera and held it steady against the doorframe.
I had held evidence steady for years.
On the screen they looked small and lit.
Daphne's fingers found his collar.
"Do you think she suspects anything?" she asked.
Judson laughed under his breath.
"Ella?" he said. "She's not looking for trouble anymore."
He pushed deeper into her, and she moaned and forgot her question.
"That's the best thing about her now," he said.
The hallway went very still around me.
I kept filming.
I felt the first clean edge of anger arrive, and it was not what I expected.
It was not because he had called me boring.
It was because he truly believed that the part of me that used to frighten him was something he could praise me for losing.
Five years ago I was the best forensic accountant in Milwaukee.
People called me the Ledger, because I could find where money went.
I put nine men in front of judges, and their lawyers asked for recesses when I took the stand.
I gave it all up the night Judson said, over a dinner with his friends, that being married to me felt like being audited at his own table.
I had laughed with everyone.
The next Monday I called my boss and quit.
Judson had kissed my forehead and told me I was finally relaxing.
Now I stopped the recording and watched it once.
Then I opened my contacts and found Lars Rhodes, Daphne's husband.
He had driven the two of us home from a dinner last spring when Daphne drank too much.
I attached the video and pressed send before I could think about his face.
The little bar crawled across the screen and turned to Delivered.
I put the phone in my pocket.
Then I picked up Daphne's shoes from under my table, one in each hand.
I did not slam the door.
I opened it and walked out onto my porch in the cold.
I heard Judson's study door scrape behind me.
"Ella?"
He came out buttoning his shirt, with his hair pushed back.
He did not look scared yet.
He looked interrupted at something small.
"You're home early," he said.
I held up the shoes by their heels.
His eyes went to them, and then to my face.
"It's not what it looks like," he said.
"It's what it sounds like," I said.
Behind him Daphne appeared in the hall with his jacket held against her chest.
I did not look at her.
I kept my eyes on my husband.
"You have my father's money," I said.
"Three hundred and ten thousand dollars in a note with my signature on it."
"I want it in my account by Friday."
Judson stared at me.
Then he laughed, short and surprised.
"Honey," he said. "You couldn't read a quarterly report if I handed you one."
"You haven't opened a ledger in five years."
"No," I said. "I haven't."
I walked down my front steps with Daphne's shoes in my hand.
I got into my car, set the shoes on the passenger seat, and started the engine.
My phone buzzed against my hip before I reached the end of the block.
It was a text from Lars Rhodes.
"I just watched it. I'm not going to ask if it's real."
A second text came right after it.
"Don't let him near the study tonight. He keeps everything on paper. If you're not in there, he'll burn whatever you'd want."
I looked at the road ahead of me, and then at the mirror.
Judson did keep everything on paper.
I was the one who had taught him to.
I put on my turn signal and went around the block.
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