An icy fist hits me in the center of the chest and spreads outward as, suddenly, all the pieces fall together and everything makes sense. It’s like one of those psychological tests I give to my students, where you get the gist of the sentence even though most of the words are missing. In this case, the words are your husband is a thief.
I fold my arms over my chest, shivering despite the temperature nudging up into the low seventies. “How much money?”
He bounces his meaty shoulders. “Hard to tell, exactly. The forensic accountant is still—”
“Forensic accountant?” The words travel down me like a lightning bolt, melting my rubber soles to the pavement. I’m no finance whiz, but I know the term. Lake Forrest divorces almost always include one, a financial investigator specialized in ferreting out hidden funds. Last year, Jeannette Davis’s mother was awarded half of her soon-to-be ex-husband’s offshore accounts, thanks to hers.
“As I was saying, until the forensic accountant comes back with her final report, we don’t have a number.”
“Give me a ballpark.”
“Four million, four hundred seventy-three thousand.” Nick coughs into a fist. “And counting.”
“So. What you’re really asking me here is if I’ve happened to notice an extra four and a half million sitting around in our joint bank account?” The words feel like okra, prickly and slimy on my tongue.
“No, but...” Nick grimaces. “I...thought maybe you might know something...”
My eyes widen. “No. Jesus, no. Of course not.”
“My ass is on the line here, Iris. We’re planning to go public next year, and my board is holding me accountable. Nobody wants to buy stock in a company whose internal procedures allow an employee to walk away with four and a half million. Please, if there’s anything you’re not telling me...”
“He didn’t walk away, Nick. He got on a plane that fell out of the sky.” I think about what Leslie Thomas told me, of a hungover pilot half-asleep at the wheel, and a surge of sick rises from my belly.
He winces. “I know that, and I’m sorry as hell about it. But what I’m trying to say here is, I thought of Will as a friend, which is partially why I’d like to keep this between us.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, that if we get back that money and can straighten out the books, that will be the end of it. It’ll stay between us, no questions asked. At this point I don’t care about the whys and hows. I just need to recover that money.”
“You really think I know where it is?”
He gives me an apologetic smile, but it doesn’t soften his next words. “Do you?”
Anger rises up inside me, silent and swift. “You can’t seriously be asking me that.”
His silence tells me he is. I’m suddenly nauseous, too much tea and Mom’s brownie revolting in my gut, and I worry I might throw up on Nick’s brand-new sneakers.
“I’m sure it’s all a big misunderstanding.”
Nick shakes his head, short and definitive. “It’s not.”
“How do you know that Will’s the one who took it?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Four and a half million doesn’t just disappear overnight. This must have been going on for years. How does nobody not notice?”
“I can’t tell you that, either. In fact, I’ve probably said too much already. My lawyers are going to have a shit fit when I tell them about this conversation.”
Lawyers. Forensic accountants. I roll the Cartier ring up and down my finger with my thumb, an unconscious habit I picked up sometime this past week, fiddling with the ring whenever I think of Will. Maybe it’s because of the way he gave it to me, so unexpectedly and intimately, or maybe it’s because of his words—you, me and baby-to-be. But for some reason, for lots of reasons, touching it has given me comfort.
Until now.
Now I notice Nick noticing, and jutting out above his dark shades, there’s a new crease between his brows.
I shove my fists into the pockets of my hoodie. “I don’t know anything about the money, and I can assure you it’s not sitting in our account.”
For the longest time, he doesn’t respond. People pass us on all sides, whizzing by on skates and skateboards, and Nick just stands there, filling up half the path with his girth and watching me with a blank expression. I know what he’s doing. He’s waiting for me to insist it’s not true, that his forensic accountant must have made a mistake, that Will Griffith wasn’t capable of stealing from him or from anyone, but I can’t seem to choke the words out. If my husband was the type of person to once upon a time set fire to an apartment complex filled with sleeping people, who’s to say he wouldn’t swipe some cash from his employer’s account? I stand there across from him, biting down on my tongue and a mounting urge to cry.
Nick takes my silence as the answer it is, giving me a sorry smile before heading back the way we came. “Sorry, Iris, but I’m going after that money, even if that means taking you and a dead man down in the process.”
*
As soon as Nick’s gone, I toss the water bottle into a trash can and take off running. It’s a gorgeous spring afternoon, and the air is filled with the sounds of a sunny day in the city: leaf blowers buzzing, the musical jangle of dogs on leashes, the low thrum of traffic in the distance and the resounding slap of my sneakers against the pavement. Eight days of little food and no activity has my muscles weak and stiff, and every step feels like punishment, but Nick’s words are chasing me, and I need to burn off all the nervous energy twitching in my bones.
Will and I loved the BeltLine. We loved the urban artwork and the skyline views and the miles and miles of parks and green space. We loved exploring it on our matching bikes, old-school types with three gears, metal bells and wicker baskets hanging from the handlebars. Will surprised me with them one year for my birthday.
“You know what this means, right?” I said, climbing on mine and wheeling it up and down the street with a loud whoop.
Will grinned from where he was watching, his hands on his hips, at the top of the drive. “No more Uber bills?”
I laughed. “That, plus if we bike all the way to Midtown and back, the French fries I’m going to eat for lunch will be guilt free.”
We took the bikes out whenever we could. On sunny weekends and warm evenings, to restaurants and bars and just because, and we were that obnoxious couple who took up the entire BeltLine because we biked back holding hands.
And now, if I’m to believe everything I’ve learned today, this same man was a criminal. A liar and a thief, one who in the last month of his life was distracted and moody. One who got into fights at the gym and punched dents into living-room walls. One who Nick and his forensic accountant were onto. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Will was probably feeling squeezed.