Chapter 4 - The Discovery Notice
By Thursday, the paper war had ceased to be an exchange of civil letters and had become an artillery barrage.
Nicole Feldman called my cell phone while I was parked behind a municipal building in Aurora, reviewing a revised change order for an emergency sanitary sewer bypass.
"Miller just filed his financial affidavit for Ryan," Nicole said without preamble. "It's an absolute work of fiction."
"How bad?"
"He lists his monthly living expenses at eight thousand two hundred dollars. He claims he requires four thousand a month in temporary maintenance from you to maintain the marital lifestyle. He also claims that the Future Family savings account was a discretionary joint fund used for 'mutual family obligations,' including emergency financial assistance to close family friends."
A cold laugh escaped my throat. "Close family friends. Is that what we’re calling the mother of his unborn child?"
"In court, words are shields until they’re dismantled under oath," Nicole said. "Here’s the lever: Miller made the mistake of attaching Ryan’s current bank statements without realizing we already had the sub-account ledger from First Midwest Bank. Ryan didn't close the account he used to transfer funds to Audrey’s LLC. He just renamed it on his app."
"The thirty-eight thousand?"
"Forty-three thousand seven hundred and ten dollars," Nicole corrected. "We found two more transfers from November. One went directly to an automotive repair shop for a transmission rebuild on Audrey’s Volkswagen. The other was a cash withdrawal at an ATM three blocks from Audrey’s apartment on Christmas Eve. Two thousand dollars."
I closed my eyes.
On Christmas Eve, Ryan had left our house at 3:00 p.m., telling me he needed to drop off a gift basket for his high school’s athletic director who had lost his father that autumn. He had returned at 6:30, smelling of pine and winter air, kissing my neck as I pulled the roast out of the oven. *You work too hard, honey. Let me carve.*
He had carved my roast after handing my best friend two thousand dollars in stolen bills.
"What do we do with it?" I asked.
"We don't wait for the temporary relief hearing," Nicole said firmly. "I’m issuing a subpoena duces tecum to Audrey Lane today. We are deposing her next Wednesday at my office. She has to bring three years of personal and business tax returns, bank statements for all accounts held in her name or Audrey Lane Design LLC, and every text message, email, or written communication between her and Ryan Barrett referencing financial transfers, loans, or gifts."
"Will Miller try to quash it?"
"He’ll try," Nicole said. "He’ll claim third-party harassment. But under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 201, the scope of discovery regarding dissipated assets is extraordinarily broad. Audrey received marital funds from a spouse during an ongoing marriage. She isn't a bystander; she is the recipient of disputed property. She sits in the chair, Leah. Under oath. With a court reporter recording every syllable."
"I want to be in the room," I said.
Nicole paused. For three seconds, the line was silent.
"Leah, depositions of the paramour are brutal. They are designed to extract facts, but the emotional cost can be catastrophic. You don't have to put yourself through that. You can let me do my job."
"Nicole," I said, looking out through the windshield at the gray municipal water tower rising over the suburban rooftops. "I have spent ten years on job sites where men double-billed steel tonnage and blamed the weather when their trench boxes collapsed. I do not hide in trailers while other people verify my quantities. I sit at the table."
"Ten o'clock Wednesday," Nicole said. "Wear something dark. Don't speak unless I tell you to. Let her look at you while she explains where the money went."
When I arrived home that evening, the house was unusually dark.
I walked into the kitchen and found Ryan standing by the sink, holding an envelope with Feldman Law LLC’s return address. The process server had evidently done his job.
"You subpoenaed Audrey," Ryan said. His voice was thin, reedy, stripped of the defensive bravado he had wielded forty-eight hours earlier.
"My attorney subpoenaed her," I said, setting my purse on the counter.
"She’s twenty-three weeks pregnant, Leah! Her doctor told her two days ago that she has early signs of preeclampsia! If she has to sit in a legal office for six hours being interrogated about rent payments, she could go into preterm labor! Do you care about that at all? Does that even register in your calculations?"
I turned to face him. The kitchen pendant lights caught the hard lines of my face—the exhaustion, the lack of makeup, the steady, unblinking focus that had unnerved more than one project executive.
"If she has a medical emergency, she can have her physician submit an affidavit under penalty of perjury requesting a postponement," I said. "Otherwise, she appears."
Ryan dropped the envelope onto the granite. "She doesn't have the money to pay it back. You know that. She’s freelance. Her ex-husband left her broke. I gave her that money because she was desperate, not because she wanted to rob you!"
"You gave her my money, Ryan."
"It was mine too!"
"Show me the deposit slips," I said, stepping toward him. "Show me where the fifty-two thousand dollars in that account came from. My base salary: twelve hundred a month. Your salary: six hundred. My annual bonus: seven thousand five hundred each December. Dad’s workshop equipment sale: eighteen thousand dollars. Do the math, Ryan. You’re a teacher. Run the fractions."
He looked away, his mouth working silently.
"You contributed less than fifteen percent of that principal," I continued, each word delivered with the dry precision of an engineering specification. "You withdrew eighty percent of it. You didn't give her your money. You took my labor, my father’s legacy, and the child we never had, and you bought yourself an apartment, a car repair, and a nursery for another woman."
"I loved you," he whispered, his eyes filling with tears that no longer moved me. "I really did. I didn't plan for this to happen."
"That is the most pathetic thing you’ve said yet," I told him. "A bridge doesn't collapse because the engineer planned for it to fall. It collapses because someone cut corners, ignored the stress loads, and hoped nobody would notice until the contract was paid. Go back to the basement, Ryan."
May you like
He didn't move for a long moment. Then, his shoulders slumped, he picked up his envelope and walked down the basement stairs, closing the door behind him with a soft, defeated click.
***
