My Best Friend Is Living Off My Husband's Money (My Best Friend's Betrayal #4)

Chapter 1

I count the money first.

Today the number is wrong.

Eight thousand dollars gone.

My best friend.

I stare at the screen. $24,418. I wasn't wrong. I'm never wrong about money. Eight thousand dollars went to Brooke's account while I was unconscious in this bed, and my husband sent it without telling me.

Feet on the cold tile — twelve tiles between the bed and the bathroom door. I brush my teeth. Wash my face. Put my hair up. Then I go further back in the statements. I usually only check the balance — not the transactions. The number was always right, so I never scrolled. Today I scroll.

May 3: $500 — Zelle to Brooke Ellison.

May 11: $200 — Zelle to Brooke Ellison.

May 19: $1,200 — Zelle to Brooke Ellison.

May 28: $3,000 — Zelle to Brooke Ellison.

June 2: $2,500 — Zelle to Brooke Ellison.

June 9: $8,000 — Zelle to Brooke Ellison.

Six transfers since May. $15,400 that I can see on the first page.

I go back further. ATM withdrawals I never flagged because Marco buys materials in cash sometimes. But now I add them up. February: $600. March: $1,500. April: $2,000. Plus a gap in the savings I noticed last month — I'd told myself the property tax drafted early.

It didn't.

I'm at the kitchen table now. Phone and a pad of paper. Every number written down. Added three times because the first two times I don't believe the total.

$23,000.

Twenty-three thousand dollars gone to Brooke over four months. While I worked twelve-hour night shifts and slept through the days and counted money in my head every morning to make sure we were on track.

We were never on track. We were bleeding out.

I pick up the phone and call the bank. "I'd like to check if there's a line of credit or loans on this account."

There is. A personal line of credit — $23,000, opened March 4th. Co-signer: Marco Alvarez. He opened it. He spent it. He sent it to Brooke. And the $24,000 left in savings — that's not real either, because we owe $23,000 back to the bank.

We don't have a house fund anymore. We have nothing. Less than nothing.

I hang up. Press my thumbnail into the pad of my index finger until the half-moon goes white. Count the seconds for color to return. Four. Do it again. Four.

Marco's truck pulls into the driveway at 5:20 PM. Engine cut. Door slam. Boots on the steps. He opens the fridge like it's any Tuesday.

"Hey. You eat yet?"

"Where's the money, Marco?"

His hand freezes on the refrigerator door.

"What?"

"The eight thousand dollars you sent to Brooke yesterday. While I was sleeping."

He turns slowly. His face rearranges — not guilt. Calculation. Which version does he tell me.

"She was going to be evicted," he says. "She had nothing, Nina. The landlord was going to change the locks."

"She doesn't have children."

"I didn't say—"

"You told me once she was about to be evicted 'with her kids.' Brooke doesn't have children, Marco."

He closes the refrigerator. Five seconds of silence.

"It started with the rent," he says. "She was two months behind. Eleven hundred. I thought — we have savings. We can spare it. I'd tell you later."

"You didn't."

"I was going to. But then she needed more. And I'd already not told you about the first time, so telling you about the second meant admitting the first—"

"Twenty-three thousand dollars."

His face changes now. Now he knows I know the whole number.

"I went through everything," I say. "Zelle transfers. Cash withdrawals. The line of credit you opened in March without asking me."

He sits down. Puts his head in his hands. For twenty-eight seconds — I count — he says nothing.

Then: "She had nothing. We have enough. I thought you'd understand."

"We DON'T have enough. You spent our house. Three years of me picking up extra shifts and eating cafeteria food. You spent it."

"I'll pay it back. The Fairfield job—"

"Are you sleeping with her?"

The air shifts. He lifts his head. Eyes wet.

"It's not like that."

"Yes or no."

He looks at the table. At his hands. At his ring.

"Once," he says. "One time. April."

I set down my coffee mug. Gently. I count the tiles between my chair and the back door. Eight.

"Which night in April."

"The fourteenth."

I check my phone. April 14th. My shift: 7 PM to 7 AM. At 11:42 PM I was running a code on a sixty-year-old man in V-fib. We got him back. I cried in the break room for ninety seconds and then went back to work.

While I was saving someone's life, my husband was in my best friend's bed.

"I need you to leave," I say.

"Nina, please—"

"Not permanently. I don't know what's permanent yet. But I need you to leave and I need to sleep. I've been awake for twenty-three hours."

He takes his keys. Pauses at the door. Says nothing. Leaves.

I lock it. Set my alarm for 4 PM. Brush my teeth again — thirty-two strokes top, thirty-two bottom, ten seconds rinsing. Get into bed.

The house we want is $289,000. Down payment: $32,000. We have $1,000. After three years.

He didn't steal our money. He gave it away. And somehow that's worse.

I fall asleep at 8:11 AM. I don't dream.