Chapter 5 - WHAT DIANE HAD AGREED TO
Diane answered on the fourth call.
“I’m driving.”
“Pull over.”
“Maya.”
“Pull over.”
A minute passed.
Then I heard a turn signal.
“All right.”
“Why is your phone number on Oakline’s state filing?”
Silence.
“I don’t know.”
“Try again.”
“I helped Eric with some paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
“Mail. Things like that.”
“You were the filing contact.”
“He didn’t want business calls coming to the house.”
“They were already using our home address.”
“I don’t know why he did that.”
“You knew my name was listed as CFO.”
“I knew he said you were helping him.”
“You saw documents with my name.”
“Yes.”
“And when you loaned him eighty-eight thousand dollars, he showed you a note with my forged signature.”
“I didn’t know it was forged.”
“When did Carter Family Housing LLC become part of this?”
She breathed out slowly.
“After the loan.”
“Why?”
“Eric said we needed somewhere separate to receive repayments.”
“We?”
“He said if Oakline paid me directly it could complicate taxes.”
That was nonsense.
Not sophisticated nonsense.
The kind of nonsense that worked only when the listener wanted it to.
“What has gone into the LLC?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You have bank statements.”
“They’re electronic.”
“Then open them.”
“I’m not doing this on the side of the road.”
“Fine. Come back tomorrow.”
“To the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Then email them to my lawyer.”
“You already have a lawyer?”
“I have counsel.”
“Oh, God.”
“You were willing to take twenty-three thousand dollars from me at my baby shower. You can survive an email.”
“I didn’t know you hadn’t agreed to repay me.”
“You lied about being homeless.”
“I know.”
That surprised me.
No defense.
No explanation.
Just the fact.
I said, “Why?”
“Eric said people would ask questions.”
“So he told you to make up a landlord.”
“Yes.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her voice cracked.
“Because I thought you were trying to destroy him.”
The cars outside my hospital window moved along New Bern Avenue in thin streams of red taillights.
I said, “Explain that.”
“I can’t do this now.”
“You just told me you thought I was destroying my husband.”
“He said you were threatening him.”
“With what?”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Diane.”
The line went dead.
The next morning Marissa Feld came to the hospital.
She was fifty-two, silver-haired, and so controlled that even her leather notebook seemed organized by temperament.
She closed the door behind her.
“Tessa gave me the broad outline.”
“My husband forged my signature.”
“That’s what we need to establish with evidence.”
“I know my signature.”
“I believe you. A court, bank, licensing board, or police investigator will need more than that.”
She held up one finger.
“Second, the twenty-three thousand from the joint account may be legally complicated. If Eric had withdrawal authority, the bank may treat the withdrawal as authorized even if his use of the funds violated marital duties.”
“I know.”
“Third, the attempted transfer from your business account is cleaner. If you did not authorize access, that is potentially criminal.”
“Okay.”
“Fourth, your name appearing on Oakline concerns me professionally.”
“It concerns me too.”
“Have you ever done work for any medical distributor connected to Eric?”
“No.”
“Any client conflict?”
“Not knowingly.”
“Good. We disclose internally before someone else does.”
My stomach turned.
“I’m on partnership track.”
“I know.”
“I could lose it.”
“You could lose more by hiding this.”
She was right.
That didn’t make breathing easier.
Marissa opened her notebook.
“I also want you to stop calling Diane about banking records.”
“I didn’t threaten her.”
“This isn’t about threatening. It’s about preserving testimony. You are trained to investigate financial misconduct. That makes it even more important that you don’t create the appearance of shaping anyone’s story.”
I nodded.
“Understood.”
“Your job right now is to recover from surgery and be with your baby.”
Everybody kept telling me that.
For once, I believed it.
That afternoon Nora tolerated a decrease in respiratory support.
The neonatologist said the next forty-eight hours mattered.
I sat beside her incubator with my hand resting inside the port.
Eric entered the NICU twenty minutes later.
He wore his parent band.
I couldn’t stop him from being Nora’s father.
I didn’t want to.
That was one of the worst parts.
He stood across from the incubator.
“How is she?”
“You can ask the nurse.”
“I’m asking you.”
“They lowered the pressure.”
His shoulders loosened.
“That’s good.”
“Yes.”
We watched our daughter in silence.
Then Eric said, “Mom told me you have an attorney.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“My attorney will contact you if necessary.”
He laughed quietly.
“Listen to yourself.”
I did.
I sounded like a woman talking to someone she no longer trusted.
“She’s my daughter too,” he said.
“I know.”
“You’re not taking her from me.”
“I haven’t said anything about custody.”
“You don’t have to.”
I turned.
“What have you been telling your mother about me?”
His face closed.
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“An interrogation.”
“You told her I was trying to destroy you.”
“I told her we were having problems.”
“We were?”
Eric looked genuinely astonished.
That hurt more than if he had smiled.
“You didn’t notice?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
He left before I could answer.
For the next several hours, those words followed me.
You didn’t notice?
Maybe I hadn’t.
There had been arguments.
Money.
My hours.
His resentment when clients called during dinner.
His refusal to discuss why his commission checks had become irregular.
But marriage was full of friction people learned to step around.
I had thought we were tired.
I had thought a baby would force us to become more intentional.
I had thought many stupid things.
At seven that evening, Marissa called.
“Diane sent documents.”
“She did?”
“Bank statements and emails.”
“Did you ask her to?”
“She contacted me.”
“What’s in them?”
“A lot.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Tell me.”
“The good news is there are records.”
“And the bad news?”
“The first eighty-eight thousand from Diane’s HELOC appears to have moved into Oakline’s account.”
“So there was really a business.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the money?”
“We’re still tracing.”
“Still?”
“Because it did not move the way Eric described.”
I stood slowly beside the NICU window.
“Where did it go?”
“Some went to legitimate startup expenses. Legal fees. Insurance. A warehouse deposit.”
“And the rest?”
“Forty-seven thousand dollars was transferred from Oakline to an account at Triangle Brokerage Services.”
“Whose account?”
“That’s what I need to confirm.”
A new email appeared while she was speaking.
From Marissa.
One attachment.
I opened it.
It was a transfer confirmation Diane had found in an Oakline folder.
OWNER NAME:
DIANE CARTER.
BENEFICIARY DESIGNATION:
ERIC CARTER.
May you like
The money Eric claimed he had lost in a failed business had not been lost.
He had been moving it into his mother’s name.
