Chapter 5 - What Ava Had Been Hearing for Months
Ethan wanted to keep financial details away from Ava.
The adults had already forced enough of their damage into her life.
But Ava offered information without being asked.
“Mom says you care more about work than us.”
Ethan looked at her across Megan’s kitchen table.
“When?”
“A lot.”
“Does she say that to you?”
Ava nodded.
“She says when people care, they don’t need meetings all the time.”
Ethan felt defensive.
Then stopped himself.
He did work too much.
Some of Natalie’s resentment had a foundation.
That did not justify an affair.
It did not justify hitting Ava.
Still, if Ethan wanted the truth, he could not make himself perfect just because Natalie had done something worse.
“I probably worked more than I should have.”
Ava looked surprised.
“So Mom was right?”
“About me missing things sometimes? Yes.”
“About everything?”
“No.”
He let the distinction stand.
Then Ava mentioned something else.
Natalie had been talking about moving.
Not directly.
She showed Ava houses online.
Asked whether she would like a pool.
Asked how she would feel living “somewhere warmer.”
One evening, Ava heard Natalie telling Cole, “Once the accounts are clean, I’m done waiting.”
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
“What accounts?”
Ava shrugged.
“I thought she meant Instagram.”
Despite everything, Ethan almost laughed.
Children heard adult secrets through completely different vocabulary.
Later, Ethan’s attorney advised him not to turn Ava into an investigator.
No repeated questioning.
No asking her to remember every adult conversation.
If something important surfaced naturally, document it and let the proper professionals handle the rest.
Ethan followed that advice.
It was harder than he expected.
He wanted answers.
But wanting answers was not a license to turn his daughter into evidence.
Meanwhile, Priya identified more problems.
Northline’s invoices were not the only suspicious transactions.
Cole had approved unusually high change orders from two subcontractors.
Both later refunded small percentages to Northline as “coordination commissions.”
The structure looked deliberate.
Not necessarily illegal in every detail.
Definitely undisclosed.
Ethan asked Priya how long it could have continued.
“Indefinitely,” she said, “if project margins stayed strong enough that nobody looked closely.”
That sentence hurt.
Mercer Residential had been profitable.
Success had hidden leakage.
Just as outward family stability had hidden the affair.
Then Priya found an email.
Cole had written Natalie four months earlier:
Ethan is asking about margins again. We need to slow Northline until Q4.
Natalie replied:
No. We’re almost there.
Ethan read the exchange twice.
May you like
Almost where?
That answer would define whether he was dealing with opportunistic theft, an escape plan, or something else entirely.
