Chapter 6
I didn’t sleep that night.
I lay in bed until three in the morning.
Thinking about money.
About prison.
About two innocent kids who were about to have their lives blown up all over again.
At three fifteen, I got up.
Walked down the hall to Noah’s room.
Pushed the door open.
The light from the hallway spilled in.
Noah was on his back.
Emily curled into his side.
His arm thrown over her protectively.
Both of them sound asleep.
Noah’s dinosaur collection was arranged in a circle around the bed.
Like tiny soldiers guarding them.
I stood there for a long time.
Watching them breathe.
Making a promise to both of them.
Whatever happened.
Whatever Ethan had done.
I would protect them.
Both of them.
No matter what it cost me.
I closed the door softly.
Went to the kitchen.
Poured myself a glass of water.
Stared at the stack of papers on the table.
The birth certificate.
The paternity test.
The child support records.
Danielle was right.
The numbers didn’t add up.
Ethan made ninety thousand a year.
After taxes, that was about five thousand a month.
He paid me eighteen hundred for Noah.
He paid Danielle eighteen hundred for Emily.
That left fourteen hundred dollars.
For his rent.
His car payment.
His insurance.
Food.
Gas.
Everything.
And somehow, on top of that, he’d bought two diamond rings.
Planned a hundred-thousand-dollar wedding.
Bought Madison a ten-thousand-dollar engagement ring.
Taken her to Paris for their first anniversary.
It was impossible.
Unless Danielle was right.
Unless he’d been stealing.
I picked up my phone.
Texted Danielle.
*You awake?*
Three dots appeared immediately.
*Yes. Can’t sleep.*
*Me neither. We need to talk. About the money.*
*Come over. My address is 247 Oakwood Drive, Decatur. Apt 3B. Emily’s asleep at your place. We can talk freely here.*
I grabbed my keys.
Left a note on the fridge for Ethan—he’d crashed on the couch after Danielle left.
*Went out. Kids are still asleep. Don’t wake them.*
I drove to Decatur.
Forty minutes of empty highways and red traffic lights.
My mind racing the whole way.
Danielle was waiting for me at the door of her apartment.
She’d changed into sweatpants and an old college t-shirt.
Her hair was up in a messy bun.
She looked exhausted.
“Thanks for coming,” she said.
“Thanks for texting back.”
She led me inside.
Small.
Clean.
Filled with Emily’s toys and drawings.
A framed photo on the wall of Emily covered in cake at her second birthday.
No Ethan in any of the pictures.
She’d already made coffee.
Poured me a cup.
Black.
Just how I liked it.
How did she know?
“Ethan used to talk about you,” she said, like she could read my mind. “All the time. At first I thought it was just ‘my ex is crazy’ talk. But after a while… I could tell. He still cared. More than he should have. He mentioned how you took your coffee. How you hated cilantro. How you cried at every Pixar movie.”
She sat down across from me at her tiny kitchen table.
“I hated you for a long time, you know. Even though I didn’t know you. Ethan made it sound like you were the reason he couldn’t commit to me. Like you were holding him hostage with Noah. It took me two and a half years to realize he was the problem. Not you. Not me. Just him.”
I sipped my coffee.
It was perfect.
“I hated you too,” I admitted. “When I found the birth certificate last night… I wanted to hate you. I wanted to blame you. But then I saw Emily. And I saw how she looked at Noah. And I couldn’t. You’re just another person he used.”
Danielle nodded.
“Exactly. We’re both survivors. That’s why we need to stick together. Because whatever is coming—with the money, with Ethan’s job—he’s going to try to play us against each other. He’s going to try to make us compete for his attention. For his money. For his time. And we can’t let him.”
She pushed a manila envelope across the table.
“I got these last week. When the W-2 arrived. I started digging. Called in a favor from an old friend who does accounting. She pulled Ethan’s public financial records. Bank statements. Credit reports. Everything.”
I opened the envelope.
Spread the papers out.
Page after page of numbers.
Red flags everywhere.
Cash deposits of five and ten thousand dollars every month.
Deposits that didn’t come from Ethan’s employer.
Credit cards maxed out.
Then paid off in full with mysterious cashier’s checks.
A second mortgage on a house he didn’t own.
A life insurance policy on himself worth two million dollars.
Beneficiary: Danielle Emily Bennett.
Another one.
Same amount.
Beneficiary: Sarah Marie Carter.
My maiden name.
He’d never changed it.
“Two life insurance policies,” I said. “Two million each. Both taken out eighteen months ago.”
Danielle nodded.
“My friend said that’s common with embezzlers. They take out huge policies right before they get caught. Either they plan to run and fake their own death… or they plan to kill themselves and leave the money to their families.”
The room spun.
Suicide.
Ethan.
Dead.
Noah growing up without a dad.
Emily growing up without a dad.
Me and Danielle left to pick up the pieces.
And two million dollars each.
Blood money.
“Or,” Danielle said, “he’s planning something worse.”
“Worse than suicide?”
“Worse than faking his own death?”
She leaned forward.
Her voice dropped.
“Think about it, Sarah. Three women. Two children. A wedding that just blew up in front of three hundred people. An embezzlement investigation that’s probably days away from landing on his boss’s desk. He’s trapped. Every direction he turns, there’s a wall. Every person who loves him, he’s betrayed.”
She paused.
“What if the policies aren’t for him to die? What if they’re for us to die?”
A chill ran down my spine.
“That’s crazy. Ethan would never hurt us. He’s a liar and a coward, but he’s not a killer.”
“Is he? You think you know him. I thought I knew him. But we’ve both been living with a stranger for three years. What else don’t we know? What else is he capable of?”
She was right.
I’d thought I knew everything about Ethan.
And I’d had no idea he had a second daughter.
No idea he was cheating on both of us with a third woman.
No idea about the money.
No idea about the insurance policies.
What else was there?
What other secrets was he hiding?
“Okay,” I said. “So what do we do?”
“First, we get proof. Real proof. Of the embezzlement. Of whatever else he’s hiding. Second, we make sure the kids are protected. No matter what happens to Ethan, they’re taken care of. Third… we watch him. Every move. Every text. Every phone call. Because if he is planning something… we need to know before it’s too late.”
I looked at the insurance policies again.
At my name typed neatly under Beneficiary.
At the two million dollar payout.
At the fine print: Pays double indemnity in case of accidental death.
Four million dollars.
If I died in an “accident.”
Same for Danielle.
Eight million dollars total.
Enough to pay back every stolen penny.
Enough to start over.
Somewhere far away.
With nobody who knew his name.
Ethan had motive.
He had opportunity.
And he had a history of making terrible, selfish choices.
Danielle was right.
We couldn’t trust him.
Not anymore.
Not ever again.
“We need to get the kids out of his house,” I said. “Wherever he’s staying now. If he’s capable of what you’re saying… they can’t be alone with him. Not even for a second.”
Danielle nodded.
“Agreed. We tell him we want full custody for the next six months. Supervised visits only. Until we know exactly what’s going on.”
“He’ll fight us.”
“Let him. We’ve got the birth certificate. We’ve got the lies. We’ve got three years of him hiding a child. No judge in Georgia is going to give him unsupervised visits after this.”
She stood up.
Walked to the window.
Looked out at the empty street.
“There’s one more thing. Something else my friend found.”
She didn’t turn around.
“Ethan has a fourth bank account. We can’t trace it. It’s offshore. In the Cayman Islands. There’s just over three million dollars in it. Deposited in cash over the last two years.”
Three million dollars.
Hidden.
Stolen.
Enough to disappear forever.
Enough to start a new life.
Somewhere with no ex-wives.
No fiancées.
No children.
No consequences.
“When was the last deposit?” I said.
Danielle turned around.
Her face was white.
“Yesterday. The morning of his wedding. Three hundred thousand dollars. Cash.”
Yesterday.
The same day Noah had found the ring.
The same day everything had exploded.
Ethan had known.
He’d known the walls were closing in.
And he’d made one last deposit.
Preparing to run.
Or preparing something worse.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out.
A text from Ethan.
Sent two minutes ago.
*Woke up. Kids are still asleep. Where are you? We need to talk. Something happened at work last night. It’s bad.*
I looked at Danielle.
Showed her the text.
She read it.
Her jaw tightened.
“It’s starting.”
I stood up.
Pushed the papers back into the envelope.
“I have to go. He’ll get suspicious if I’m not there when the kids wake up.”
“Be careful, Sarah. Please. Whatever he tells you… assume it’s a lie. Until you can prove otherwise.”
I nodded.
“You too. Lock your doors. Set your alarm. And if anything feels wrong—anything at all—call me. Immediately.”
“I will.”
She walked me to the door.
Hugged me.
Quick.
Tight.
“We’re going to get through this,” she said. “For Noah. For Emily.”
“For us too,” I said.
She smiled.
A small, sad smile.
“Yeah. For us too.”
I drove home.
The sun was starting to come up.
Pink and orange streaks across the sky.
A beautiful morning.
The kind that makes you believe everything is going to be okay.
But I knew better.
Nothing was going to be okay.
Not for a long time.
Because Ethan wasn’t just a liar and a cheater anymore.
He was a criminal.
Possibly a desperate one.
And desperate men did desperate things.
I pulled into my driveway.
Ethan was standing on the front porch.
Holding his phone.
Pale.
Shaking.
He saw my car.
Ran toward me as I got out.
“Sarah. Thank God. We have to leave. Now. Pack the kids. Grab whatever you need. We have two hours. Maybe less.”
I stepped back.
“Leave? What are you talking about?”
He grabbed my arms.
May you like
His hands were ice cold.
“Work. They know. The auditors came in last night. Found everything. The police are on their way. If I get arrested, I’m going away for twenty years. Minimum. We have to run. All of us. You, me, Noah, Danielle, Emily. We can start over. Somewhere they’ll never find us. Please, Sarah. Say you’ll come with me.”
