Chapter 6 - The Discovery
By Friday morning, four days after the concrete stairwell collapsed beneath me, Dr. Keller officially discharged me from St. Gabriel Medical Center.
My ribs were still tightly wrapped, every movement was an exercise in slow, deliberate pain management, and my left side was covered in a massive, darkening purple bruise. But I walked out of the hospital on my own feet, leaning heavily on my father's arm.
We didn't go back to Hawthorne Lane right away.
Instead, Dad drove me directly to Rachel Vance's office on Main Street.
Rachel's office was located in a restored brick building with tall windows and high ceilings. She had set up a comfortable leather sofa for me with two pillows supporting my back, a heating pad behind my side, and a hot mug of peppermint tea on the coffee table.
Sitting beside Rachel was a young man named Marcus, a forensic accountant Rachel frequently retained for high-conflict divorce cases.
Spread across the coffee table were three thick stacks of financial statements, bank printouts, and property records.
"We pulled the joint account first," Marcus said, tapping the top stack with his pen. "Over the last fourteen months, Ethan has been quietly moving small amounts of cash out of your joint grocery and travel fund. Fifty dollars here, a hundred dollars there. Nothing that would trigger an automatic bank alert or look unusual on a quick glance."
"How much total?" I asked, sipping my tea carefully.
"Eight thousand, four hundred dollars," Marcus revealed. "All withdrawn in cash from an ATM three blocks from Lisa Harmon's apartment complex."
I closed my eyes for a second, feeling a dull, sickening ache behind my ribs that had nothing to do with my fractured bones. "What else?"
"That’s just the cash," Rachel interjected, picking up a second file. "We subpoenaed the corporate expense logs from Cedar Lane Commercial Properties. Ethan’s boss was surprisingly cooperative when I mentioned that a fraud investigation might involve their firm’s accounting department."
She slid three pages across the glass table toward me.
They were copies of corporate credit card receipts submitted by Ethan over the last eight months.
Dinner at Le Petit Bistro: $240.00. Business purpose: Client entertainment (Lisa Harmon). Hotel stay at The Brown Hotel, Louisville: $480.00. Business purpose: Regional real estate conference. Jewelry purchase at Shane Co.: $1,200.00. Business purpose: Client appreciation gift.
"The client appreciation gift was a platinum pendant," Rachel said quietly. "We cross-referenced the serial number with the store's sales receipt. It was picked up in person by Lisa Harmon."
"He was using his company card to fund his affair," I whispered, the absurdity of it almost making me laugh. "He was stealing from his employer to buy her jewelry."
"And that brings us to the most important piece," Marcus said, holding up a sleek black USB drive. "Yesterday afternoon, after Ethan was escorted out of the hospital, he went directly to his office at Cedar Lane Commercial Properties. He thought no one was watching. He downloaded three years of client listings, pending property deeds, and internal commission logs onto a personal flash drive."
I frowned. "Why would he do that?"
"Because he knew he was about to get fired," Rachel explained. "Cedar Lane has a strict policy regarding internal relationships between senior brokers and staging contractors. Someone sent an anonymous tip to their HR department yesterday morning—complete with copies of those hotel receipts."
I looked at my father. Dad sat in the armchair across from me, sipping his coffee, looking entirely unbothered.
"Was that you?" I asked him.
"I don't like thieves, Maggie," Dad said simply. "A man who steals from his wife will steal from his boss. I just thought his boss deserved to know who was handling their expense accounts."
"Ethan was fired at three o'clock yesterday afternoon," Rachel added with a cold, satisfied smile. "Security escorted him out of the building. His company car was repossessed on the spot. He is currently unemployed, driving his mother's ten-year-old station wagon, and facing an internal audit from his former employer."
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I took a slow breath, feeling the air expand against my bandaged chest. "What's his next move?"
"His next move," Rachel said, leaning forward, "is going to be a desperate attempt to claim alimony and a fifty-percent share of Hawthorne Lane. He has no income, no corporate benefits, and a girlfriend who is about to realize that her charming, generous boyfriend was broke all along."
