Chapter 6: Served at Her Desk

On Wednesday afternoon a courier came onto the twelfth floor and asked for me by my full name.

He wore a reflective vest and carried a thick envelope.

"Cassia Whitaker?" he said. "I need your signature."

Every head on the floor turned.

I signed on his little screen, and he handed me the envelope and left.

It was heavy, and the top corner said Circuit Court of Cook County.

Kat rolled her chair over and read it with me, over my shoulder.

It was a petition for divorce, and the petitioner was Cory Ellison.

The second page said that his wife, Cassia, had shown "repeated and escalating episodes of unstable behavior."

The third page listed them.

Exhibit A-1 was a Saturday in April, in our kitchen.

Exhibit A-14 was the break room in June.

Exhibit A-61 was last Friday night, at the coat check.

I turned the page.

There were sixty-one exhibits, each one with a date and a place.

Every one was a video.

"Oh," Kat whispered. "Oh, that snake."

Page nine was worse.

It said the savings account, the lease on a loft and "all related funds" were the petitioner's sole property.

They were being held, it said, "for his protection against the respondent's instability."

It said my husband needed to protect his money from me.

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