The Marriage Lie

by Kimberly Belle

  “No.” I shake my head. “Your daughter’s. What did you and Susanna name her?”

  Evan is still for a long moment. “Emmaline.” He clears his throat and says it again, offering up the word with a quiet reverence. “Emmaline. We called her Emma.”

  “Beautiful.” I give his arm a quick squeeze, then slide out of his passenger’s seat. “I’ll think of her every time I hear the name.”

  23

  On Sunday, Mom doesn’t want to leave.

  “There are two casseroles in the freezer, both big enough to share with half an army,” she says. We’re standing on my front porch, watching Dad shove the last of their things into the trunk down at the street. Dave and James left yesterday afternoon, and now Mom is milking every last second out of this goodbye. “I thought maybe you’d invite a couple of your girlfriends over this week. Call Lisa or Elizabeth or Christy. Ask them to keep you company.”

  “Good idea.” I’m not quite as enthusiastic as I make it sound. I love my friends as much as any other girl, but after almost two weeks of constant company, I’m looking forward to a little quiet. Grief, after all, is a solitary venture.

  “And I froze the soup in individual portions. I thought you could take it in to work for lunch or something. There are cookie balls in there, too, in a plastic bag. Just pop them in the oven whenever you need something sweet.”

  “Mom, there’s enough food in the freezer to last me until Christmas.”

  “I know, it’s just...” Worry crumples her forehead. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? I just hate the thought of you here all alone.”

  “I won’t be here most of the time. I’ll be at work, and probably pulling extra hours. It’s college acceptance season, so I’m sure there’s plenty of drama to catch up on.”

  “It’s only five days, Jules,” my father calls up the yard. “She’ll be fine.”

  She gears up to protest, and I link my arm through hers and pull her close. “He’s right, Mom, I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  She pushes up a watery grin. “I’m supposed to be the one comforting you, you know. Not the other way around.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll promise to be a big fat mess when I see you again on Friday.”

  She laughs and pulls me into a tearful hug. “Call me anytime, okay? I can be here in three and a half hours.”

  “I know.”

  “And you’ll look at those venues like you promised? I left the addresses on the kitchen counter.”

  “I will, I promise.”

  I walk her down to the car, dole out another round of hugs, and smile and wave until Dad steers their car around the corner. And then I head back up the yard to the house.

  The afternoon stretches in front of me like an open, empty road.

  I know just how I’m going to fill it.

  * * *

  Back in the house, I slide my phone from my pocket. “Siri, where can you hide four and a half million dollars?”

  Siri spits out a list of possible answers, from which I glean that a million dollars in tightly packed ones would fit into a grocery bag, a refrigerator crisper drawer and a microwave. The information is both informative and ridiculous. Why would anyone want a million dollars in one-dollar bills? But, okay, assuming Will packed the money in hundreds or thousands instead, the dimensions would still be manageable. Even with the new alarm, this house isn’t exactly the Federal Reserve, and there are only so many places in it to hide a wad of cash that large. Then again, Will is a techie. It would never occur to him to shove cash into a bag and lug it around with him. Any money movement would occur where he felt most comfortable: online.

  Okay, so I should be searching for...what? An account number scribbled on a scrap of paper? A discarded and forgotten flash drive? The key to a safety-deposit box? I groan at the prospect of searching for an unknown object the size of my pinkie finger.

  I decide to start in the attic and work my way down. I dump out boxes and bags, check behind rafters and in suitcases, search in closets and under beds. I move furniture and pull up carpets. I fetch a screwdriver from the kitchen and open every vent, reaching inside as far as my arm will go. I check the freezer and in toilet tanks.

  The entire house is an emotional minefield, every room rigged with explosives. Will’s jacket hanging on a hook by the back door. His favorite orange juice in the fridge, shoved behind a carton of creamer he never got a chance to put in his coffee. The framed poster we picked out together on a trip to New York City hanging in the hall, the couch pillows he always thought were too many and would toss onto the floor, his razor and a half-empty bottle of aftershave on the rim of his sink. I twist off the cap and press it to my nose, and the familiar scent makes me smile at the same time my eyes build with tears.

  Suddenly, I can’t breathe. I know the science behind my reaction—that the olfactory bulb is connected to the areas in the brain that regulate emotions and memory—but I still feel assaulted by this surge of Will. I see him. I smell him. I hear his voice in my ear, feel his fingertips sliding down the skin of my back. The sensation is so overwhelming, I actually look for him in the mirror, but there’s nothing behind me but wall. Sadness sinks like lead in my belly, and I screw on the cap, carry the bottle to my side of the bathroom and sink onto the vanity stool.

  The hundred-watt bulbs above my head are not kind. Greasy hair, sunken skin, a pimple brewing on my chin.

  I push to a stand, flip on the shower, return to the bottom drawer where I keep my face masks. I yank it open, and my heart stops, then cranks like a freight train engine starting up, hard and gaining speed. There, on top of the boxes and tubes and tubs is another note, this time scribbled across a bright blue sticky.

  Stop searching, Iris. Leave it alone. I can’t protect you if you don’t.

  Chill bumps sprout over every inch of my skin despite the steady puffs of steam surging from the open shower door, and I whirl around, sensing Will as surely as if he’s still here, standing right behind me. Who put this here? How? When? I haven’t opened this drawer since...before the crash? Yes, I’m positive of it.

  A slew of emotions screws tight around my chest. Elation. An I told you so excitement. A relief so intense it turns my bones to sludge, and my body spills onto the stool.

  Will is alive. He has to be. This note in his handwriting proves it.

  A high and hysterical sound comes up my throat—half laugh, half scream—and I tell myself to get a grip. If I were sitting on my own psychologist’s couch, I would explain to myself that in wishing Will alive, I’m idealizing my fantasies and not participating in the reality of his death. That I’m using my denial as a defense mechanism and deferring the work I should be doing—that of grieving my husband. And yet I can’t convince myself of any of this, because this time, there’s no denying the message.

  Stop searching. Leave it alone.

  And this time, the note came without an envelope. Which means Will had to have put it here himself.

  I snatch my phone from the vanity counter and type the question that’s been rolling through my mind like a song on repeat, ever since the very first text. Will, is this you?

  My heart clenches like a fist.

  The reply comes thirty seconds later. Iris...

  ME: Iris what? It’s a simple question, with a simple yes or no answer. Either you are or you aren’t.

  UNKNOWN: Nothing about this situation is simple.

  A flash of fury rises in me, swift and searing, and I’m suddenly done playing around. I want an answer. If Will is going to go to the trouble to sneak into our house and leave me handwritten notes, the least he can do is admit it’s him. My thumbs stab out a reply.

  ME: Answer the damn question. Are you or are you not the man who looked me in the eye and promised until death do us part?

 
I hold my breath and wait for an answer that doesn’t come.

  ME: Tell me! Are you?

  I stare at the screen, willing the person on the other end to answer.

  UNKNOWN: I’m so sorry. I never wanted any of my problems to touch you.

  A choked sound erupts up my chest.

  ME: I need to hear it. I need for you to tell me.

  UNKNOWN: Yes. I’m so sorry, but it’s me. It’s Will.

  His reply releases every emotion I’ve kept pent-up for these past twelve days. Anguish. Fury. Sorrow. Relief. Despair. They burst from me in ugly, gulping sobs, coming in waves so hard and so fast, I can’t catch my breath. My husband isn’t dead.

  I hit Dial, and as the number rings, it hits me. Will is alive, and yet he concocted an elaborate plan to make everyone—including me, his wife, his very favorite person on the planet—think he’s not. He somehow got his name onto that passenger manifest, knowing it would break my heart. I end the call after the third ring.

  It comes over me slowly at first, like a storm brewing in the distance. My breath grows shallow and short. My fingertips and toes start to tingle. I stare at the paper between my fingers, and something cold and hard forms in my belly. It snakes through my body and shimmies under my skin and ignites like kerosene in my blood, and suddenly I’m shaking. Will left me on purpose, and for money. Four and a half million dollars of it.

  Never has anyone made me feel so worthless.

  * * *

  After my shower, I stomp downstairs in bare feet and wet hair. Sometime under the scalding water, when I was scrubbing my skin hard enough to make it bleed, my fury hardened into determination. Will wants me to stop searching? He wants me to leave it alone? Sorry, but no way I’m stopping now.

  In the kitchen, I flip on the water kettle and pull a mug from the cabinet. As I’m scrounging around in the pantry for a tea bag, a trio of new texts ping my phone, rolling from one into the next.

  UNKNOWN: I’m so sorry for everything. You have to know, you are the last person on the planet I’d ever want to hurt.

  UNKNOWN: I don’t want to involve you in my troubles, and I don’t want you to have to lie. If the police come looking for me, if they confiscate your phone and find this number, it’s okay. There’s no way they’ll ever trace it. There’s no way they’ll be able to implicate you.

  UNKNOWN: Iris, are you there? Please talk to me.

  I clench my teeth, turn off the ringer and chuck the phone into the cutlery drawer.

  Once, when Will and I were still dating, he stood me up. There I was in high heels and a slinky black dress at the Rathbun bar, tipsy on lemon-drop martinis and new love, and he forgot we had a date. By then I knew he was a workaholic, and I figured he’d gotten sucked into designing software and lost all track of the time. Six-thirty turned into seven and seven turned into eight. My worry turned into irritation turned into anger. Finally, I slapped two twenties onto the bar and called a cab, firing off a snarky text on the way home. It was a shame he wasn’t there for the date, I told him, because it was our last.

  He must have checked his phone at somewhere around eleven, because that’s when he started blowing up my phone. He apologized. He begged my forgiveness. He suggested we both ditch work the next day so he could make it up to me. He promised to be thorough. I didn’t respond to a single message.

  But his obvious fluster and steady perseverance got to me, and by midnight I cracked. I texted him that I was going to bed, and we’d talk about it tomorrow.

  When he showed up at my door fifteen minutes later, still frantic with worry, I let him in. I tried to stay mad, I really did, but I was soothed by his familiar body against mine, by the thump of his pulse in his neck, by the way his lips were soft but his arms strong as they steered me down the hallway into the bedroom. When the alarm buzzed on my nightstand the next morning, Will and I were still busy, and neither one of us was thinking about work.

  But forgetting a date is not the same as choosing money over me, and it’s not in the same stratosphere as breaking your wife’s heart by faking your death. This time, I will not be soothed.

  I leave my cell where it is, tangled in a dark drawer with the forks and knives and spoons, and fetch my laptop from the table. I need to back up, concentrate on the facts and start at the very beginning. Four and a half million isn’t exactly petty cash. You can’t just swipe it from the company account without somebody noticing. Maybe if I figure out how he took it, I’ll find a clue as to where it is.

  I carry my computer over to the couch and type “corporate embezzlement schemes” into the Google search field. A California CFO pocketed almost ninety million. The head of a Chicago meat processing plant ran off with over seventy million. A VP of a West Coast merchandising company stole sixty-five million dollars via a kickback scheme, then gambled all of it away. Closer to home, a Savannah employee benefits manager made off with more than forty million in fraudulent wire transfers.

  And then my gaze falls on a story at the bottom of the page, and my heart rate spikes. With shaking fingers, I click on the link, which shoots me to a website profiling the nation’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

  In the mid-’90s, a man by the name of Javier Cardozo was accused of stealing over seventy-three million from his employer, a Boston mortgage bank. When the police arrived at his house to arrest him, they busted in his door to find the television on and a half-eaten plate of still warm macaroni on the kitchen counter, but no Javier. Both he and the money, every single cent of the seventy-three million, had vanished.

  In a year or two, will Will’s name be added to this list?

  I return to the embezzlement schemes and scroll through the links. From them, I learn two things. First, four and a half million is chump change. I’m sure Nick and the AppSec board think otherwise, but the amount is little league compared to the others I come across.

  Second, the money is almost always taken by someone with direct access to the books. A corporate officer, a head of finance, someone who handles billing or payroll. Will was a software engineer. His programming skills may have brought in business for AppSec, but how could he get money out? There had to have been someone else involved. Someone higher up within the company, someone who either paved Will’s way or covered his tracks.

  Which brings me back to Nick. He didn’t mention investigating any other employees, but then again, he was being purposefully vague, and technically, he did threaten me. He also said his job was on the line, so it’s not a long stretch to think he might be desperate. I sigh and sink back into the couch, pushing my computer aside and picking up Dad’s legal pad. I flip to a clean page and jot down what I know:

  Money is missing from AppSec. Four and a half million dollars and counting.

  Nick thinks Will is the one who took it, and if I’m totally honest, so do I.

  Will would have had to move funds from AppSec’s account to one he controlled, and in multiple transfers spanning many months, if not years.

  The money is not in the house, but a clue to where Will hid it might be.

  Nick wants the money back. So does whoever is on the other end of the 678 number, and he’s willing to kill for it. Same person?

  My heart gives a hard kick at the last one, and blood pulses in my head. Whoever it is hasn’t texted again, but it’s only a matter of time. You don’t send a threat that specific—Tell me where Will hid the money or you’ll be joining him—and then just fade away into silence. And if I’m to believe him, which I think I should, he knows how to get around an alarm.

  The growl of a lawn mower roars outside. A dog starts up across the street. Both spike my pulse, and I retrace my steps after my parents left, when I locked the doors and punched in the code on my gleaming keypad to arm the system. I tell myself I’m fine. I’m tucked safely behind the best alarm money can buy.

  Stil
l, my heart doesn’t quite settle.

  24

  The lawn mower sounds like it’s coming from just on the other side of my kitchen window. I twist around on the couch, catching a split-second glimpse of a tall, dark figure before he disappears around the corner of the house.

  “What the...?”

  I pop off the couch and run to the side window, peering through the glass at a shirtless and sweaty Corban. He’s got his head down, his shoulder muscles straining as he pushes a mower across a patch of grass that winds around from the side of the house into the back. Beyond him, neat strips of cut grass lie in perfect rows across half the yard. The other half is still wild and unruly, thanks to an unseasonably wet spring and rapidly rising temperatures.

  Without thinking, I yank open the back door, and a siren slices through the air. Corban’s head jerks up in surprise, and his feet freeze on the lawn. I slam both palms over my ears. “Oh, shit!”

  There’s no possible way he can hear me above the racket. He leans down and flips a switch on the side of the mower, as if that would help any.

  “Hang on!” I take off down the hallway to the front of the house and punch in the code on the alarm pad. The screeching stops instantly, a second or two of blissful silence before the house phone rings.

  I snatch the handheld from its stand on the kitchen counter on the way back to the yard, willing my heart to settle. On a bright note, at least I know the alarm works. Any intruder who isn’t halfway to Florida by now would have to either be deaf or dead on the floor from a heart attack.

  “Hello?”

  “We’ve received an alert for 4538 Ashland Avenue. Do you need us to send the authorities?”

  “Oh, no, sorry. False alarm, and totally my fault. I’m still getting used to this thing, and I forgot to turn it off before I opened the door.”

  “Can you please confirm the error?”

  “I thought I just did.” I step into a slice of sunshine in the backyard, where Corban is standing, hands to his hips, at the edge of the terrace. I wave an everything’s okay hand, and he traipses back over to the mower.