Chapter 6 - Packing Up The Past
Returning to the house in the suburbs was the hardest thing I had to do.
It had been four weeks since the Christmas dinner that shattered my marriage.
The snow had melted into dirty slush along the perfectly manicured sidewalks of the neighborhood.
I sat in the back of a black SUV, flanked by two federal marshals my father had insisted on sending with me.
I didn't want to come back here.
I never wanted to see the granite countertops or the formal dining room ever again.
But there were things I needed to collect before the bank officially foreclosed on the property.
David’s assets were frozen.
His bank accounts had been seized by the federal government pending the embezzlement investigation.
He had failed to make the January mortgage payment, and the bank wasted no time.
I stepped out of the vehicle, pulling my wool coat tightly over my swollen belly.
The air was bitterly cold, stinging my cheeks as I walked up the driveway.
The American flag magnet still held a faded holiday card to the mailbox.
It felt like a lifetime ago that I was drowning in the heat of that kitchen.
Marshal Reynolds unlocked the front door and pushed it open, stepping inside first to secure the empty house.
"Clear," he called out respectfully, stepping aside to let me pass.
The house was eerily silent.
A layer of thin dust had already settled over Sylvia’s antique console table in the foyer.
The dining room still smelled faintly of pine cleaner and stale wine.
I walked straight past it, keeping my eyes fixed on the staircase.
I wasn't here for the expensive crystal or the ridiculous china plates Sylvia had forced us to buy.
I went straight to David’s home office.
It was a pretentious room, lined with fake leather-bound books he had never actually read.
His diplomas hung proudly on the wall, completely useless pieces of paper now.
I opened the bottom drawer of his heavy mahogany desk.
I was looking for my mother’s jewelry box, the only thing of true value I had brought into this marriage.
Instead, my fingers brushed against a thick, hidden manila folder taped to the underside of the drawer.
I frowned, peeling the tape away and pulling the folder into the light.
My heart pounded as I opened the cover.
Inside were bank statements, but not from our joint accounts.
They were offshore accounts, hidden under a shell company listed in his mother’s maiden name.
There were transfer receipts totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
David hadn't just been stealing from his clients' trust funds.
He had been planning to leave me.
There was a printed email exchange with a prominent divorce attorney, dated three days before Christmas.
In the emails, David detailed a strategy to hide his assets and claim I was mentally unfit to ensure he didn't have to pay alimony.
He called me a "clumsy, unstable liability" in black and white text.
A cold wave of realization washed over me.
The cruelty at the Christmas dinner wasn't just his mother's random bullying.
It was a calculated attempt to push me over the edge.
They wanted me to break down in front of his colleagues.
They wanted witnesses to my "instability."
I closed the folder, a slow, triumphant smile spreading across my face.
David thought he was so smart.
He thought he had covered all his tracks.
I turned around and handed the folder to Marshal Reynolds.
May you like
"Make sure the federal prosecutor gets this before tomorrow morning," I said quietly.
"I believe David just bought himself another ten years."
