Chapter 9 - The Secret Between the Two Men
Thomas resisted for almost a full minute.
Hannah recognized the behavior.
He rubbed his thumb across the edge of his coffee mug.
Looked at the window.
Cleared his throat.
All the things people did when they were searching for the least damaging version of the truth.
“Say it,” Hannah told him.
“When I fired Derek, I agreed not to tell you the details until after the baby was born.”
Hannah stared at him.
“You made an agreement about what I was allowed to know?”
Thomas winced.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he said you were having anxiety attacks.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“He lied.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped him.”
Thomas looked at her.
That landed harder.
Good.
“He said if you discovered the money situation during your third trimester, you’d blame yourself. He said the pregnancy had already put pressure on the marriage.”
Hannah stood.
“So you let him tell me he quit.”
“I thought I was giving you six peaceful weeks.”
“You gave him six weeks alone with me.”
Thomas had no response.
Eli stirred in the bassinet.
Hannah picked him up.
Her anger had become frighteningly calm.
Derek had controlled her with cruelty.
Thomas had controlled her with protection.
One told her she was too weak to make decisions.
The other apparently believed the same thing, only more lovingly.
“That’s why Derek panicked when I mentioned you,” Hannah said.
Thomas frowned.
“He thought you were going to tell me.”
“Probably.”
But Hannah still felt something missing.
If the original forty thousand dollars had been partly repaid and Thomas agreed to wait until after the birth, Derek should have been nervous.
Not terrified.
Not the way he had looked in the doorway.
The outside accountant reviewing Pierce Custom Homes called Thomas that afternoon.
He asked for a meeting.
Thomas offered to go alone.
Hannah laughed.
“No.”
“Hannah, it’s company business.”
“And my husband is the subject.”
The accountant could not disclose everything casually, but with company counsel present and Thomas’s authorization regarding records relevant to Derek’s employment, they reviewed several disputed transactions.
One name kept appearing.
Blue Ridge Materials Consulting.
Hannah had never heard of it.
Thomas had not either.
The vendor address was a mailbox service.
Payments associated with invoices Derek approved totaled substantially more than the expense reimbursements Thomas had already discovered.
Thomas’s face drained.
Hannah stared at the company name.
Then she remembered a blue folder Derek used to keep locked in his home-office drawer.
He once snapped at her for moving it while dusting.
She had laughed at him.
Now she didn’t.
May you like
The original theft was no longer the whole story.
And Derek knew Thomas was finally close to discovering that.
