Chapter 2 - THE MARRIAGE WADE RAN LIKE A BUSINESS
Three toes were fractured.
The urgent-care physician showed Nora the X-ray just after nine that night.
“Did something fall on your foot?”
Nora stared at the image.
“No.”
The physician waited.
“My husband stepped on it.”
The room changed without anybody raising their voice.
“Accidentally?”
Nora thought of Wade increasing his weight while telling her to sign.
“No.”
The doctor documented her answer.
A nurse returned with a walking boot and asked whether Nora felt safe going home.
“No.”
That answer came easier.
Nora called her younger sister, Claire.
Thirty minutes later, Claire pulled into the parking lot wearing pajama pants beneath a raincoat.
She looked at the medical boot.
Then Nora’s face.
“What happened?”
“Can I stay with you?”
Claire did not ask another question until they were inside her small house in Worthington.
Nora sat at the kitchen table and opened her cloud photos.
The image of Wade’s blue file was still there.
So were twelve photographs she had taken after midnight the night before.
She had not intended to investigate her husband.
Not really.
She had been looking for their 2024 tax folder because Wade told her they owed nearly $86,000 more than expected.
She wanted to understand why.
Wade had been out.
His office door was unlocked.
On the desk sat a blue expanding file labeled only by year.
Inside were rent rolls for seven suburban Columbus rental houses, bank statements, loan schedules and invoices from Whitfield Site & Excavation, the contracting company owned by Wade’s younger brother, Trent.
Nora recognized several addresses.
She did not recognize the amounts.
She took pictures because Wade had recently started removing paperwork whenever she entered the office.
Then she found the yellow-tabbed packet on the kitchen counter that afternoon.
“Start from the beginning,” Claire said.
Nora almost laughed.
“The beginning was fourteen years ago.”
Wade had purchased his first rental before their marriage.
After Nora’s mother died, Nora inherited $186,000.
She invested $120,000 into three additional properties Wade said would become their retirement.
Over the next decade the portfolio grew to seven houses.
Wade managed everything through Whitfield Residential LLC.
Nora remained on several mortgages because her credit had originally helped them qualify.
She worked full time as a payroll administrator for a regional manufacturing company.
Wade called that “office work.”
He called himself the person who built their wealth.
Nora let him.
It had seemed easier.
“He always said the properties were doing well,” Claire said.
“He still says that.”
“Then why the debt?”
Nora opened one photograph.
A loan schedule showed more than $670,000 outstanding beyond the property mortgages.
Claire stared.
“Did you know about that?”
“No.”
Another photograph showed transfers to Trent’s company.
$48,000.
$31,500.
$72,000.
Another.
Another.
Claire looked at Nora.
“How much did Wade tell you he gave Trent?”
“Twenty thousand.”
The next morning Wade sent twenty-three messages.
Most alternated between apology and accusation.
Then one arrived that made Nora sit upright.
Do not call the bank. You will destroy everything we built.
Nora read it twice.
May you like
She had never told Wade she intended to call anyone.
Which meant calling the bank was exactly what he feared she would do.
