Chapter 4 - The Account Grant Never Checked
Grant returned to the house the following afternoon with his attorney’s advice and a police-approved time window.
Nadine was staying with her sister while the investigation continued.
Grant entered alone.
The house smelled exactly as it had Friday morning.
Coffee.
Laundry detergent.
The cinnamon candle Nadine burned in the kitchen.
Ordinary smells in a place that no longer felt ordinary.
He went straight to the office.
Grant had managed the mortgage, investments and taxes.
Nadine handled everyday household spending.
That arrangement had never concerned him.
Their salaries both went into the joint checking account. They had no serious debt beyond the mortgage.
Or so Grant believed.
He opened their banking portal.
Three credit cards he rarely used showed balances totaling almost thirty-one thousand dollars.
Grant stared.
Two cards had been close to zero six months earlier.
He downloaded statements.
Restaurants.
Online purchases.
A furniture company.
Cash advances.
A boutique hotel in Cincinnati.
Then recurring payments to a debt-consolidation service he had never heard of.
Grant called Nadine.
She answered immediately.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“What are these credit cards?”
Silence.
“Nadine.”
“I was going to fix it.”
“Thirty-one thousand dollars?”
“I had expenses.”
“We had expenses. Those accounts are marital accounts.”
Her voice sharpened.
“Do you want to talk about spending? Because your daughter costs more than you admit.”
Grant pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment.
“What did you just say?”
“Preschool. Therapy. Clothes. Babysitters every time you travel. Everything revolves around Piper.”
Piper attended preschool four mornings a week.
Her grief counseling had ended nearly a year earlier.
Grant looked at the statement.
He found repeated charges labeled FAMILY SUPPORT SERVICES.
Six hundred dollars.
Nine hundred.
Eleven hundred.
“I thought these were Piper’s therapy bills.”
“They were household reimbursements.”
“You told me they were therapy bills.”
“I said family-related.”
Grant remembered approving several transfers after Nadine told him insurance had stopped covering Piper’s sessions.
He had never asked for invoices.
He had trusted her.
“Where did that money actually go?”
“Don’t do this over the phone.”
“Where?”
Nadine started crying.
Grant felt almost nothing.
Then she said, “You left me to carry everything while you were obsessed with making sure she never felt one ounce of discomfort.”
Grant looked through the office window toward the backyard playset Rachel’s parents had bought Piper.
“She’s four.”
“And I’m your wife.”
Grant stopped.
It was the first time Nadine had said the real sentence beneath hundreds of smaller arguments.
Not Piper needs discipline.
Not you spoil her.
Not I need help.
I’m competing with your daughter.
Grant ended the call.
He spent the next two hours collecting statements.
Near the bottom of the desk drawer, he found a spiral notebook.
Nadine’s handwriting covered six pages.
Expenses.
Dates.
Amounts.
Beside many entries was a single letter.
P.
Grant initially assumed it meant Piper.
Then he noticed one charge he recognized.
$1,850.
The Cincinnati hotel.
Beside it:
P — repayment.
May you like
Grant looked at the other entries again.
Whatever “P” meant, it was not his daughter.
