Chapter 4
four
Reid tells me not to use Grant’s failure to punish my body.
Fine.
I decide to punish Grant instead.
The morning after the cookout, my husband sleeps until eleven.
He earned the rest.
Standing beside a grill while another man cooks is exhausting.
I leave two aspirin and a glass of water on his nightstand because I am not ready for him to notice anything has changed.
Then I go downstairs, close the door to the office (or whatever we want to call the room), and search for Brooke’s ex.
Evan Price is not difficult to find.
Brooke speaks about him as though he vanished into darkness after they split, but he has a public profile, a new job, and apparently no understanding of online privacy.
His latest picture was posted Friday night.
The same Friday he supposedly appeared drunk at Brooke’s door.
Evan is standing behind a grill in Charlotte, North Caroline, holding a spatula in one hand and a beer in the other.
A woman beside him wears a Caroline Panthers shirt and has her arm around his waist.
The caption says:
FIRST COOKOUT IN THE NEW HOUSE!!!!
There are fourteen pictures.
In one, the clock on the patio wall reads ten sixteen.
In another, Evan is cutting a cake at eleven.
At midnight, the woman posts a video of him trying to assemble a fire pit while three people give him conflicting instructions.
Brooke lives six hundred miles away.
Unless Evan learned to teleport, he never came near her house.
I save every picture.
Then I stare at the message button.
Calling your best friend’s ex without warning is the sort of decision that usually requires more coffee.
I make another cup.
Then I call him.
“Hello?”
“Evan?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Tessa… Vance…”
Silence.
Not surprise.
Caution.
Brooke has spent years describing Evan as volatile. I wonder what she says about me.
“Tessa,” he says slowly. “Is… uh… everything okay/‘
“I need to ask you something.”
“If this is about Brooke, you should probably talk to her.”
“I tried.”
That’s not technically true.
Brooke talked enough for both of us.
I pull up the note on my phone. “Were you at Brooke’s house Friday night?”
“What? No.”
“Were you in town?”
“No.”
“Did you contact her?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
He laughs without an ounce of humor. “I live in North Carolina.”
I look at the closed office door.
Above me, Grant is probably still sleeping, snoring.
“Brooke says you showed up drunk,” I say.
Evan doesn’t respond.
“She said you were pounding on the door and yelling about money.”
“Nice and dramatic,” Evan says.
“So it didn’t happen…”
“Tessa, I haven’t been in the same state as Brooke in over a year.”
I already know that, but hearing him say it changes something.
A lie becomes a fact the moment someone disproves it.
“Why would she say that?” I whisper.
“You’re asking the wrong ex.”
“Did you threaten her during your breakup?”
“No.”
“Did you show up to her house?”
“No.”
“Did you ever… scare her?”
His breath moves through the phone. “I was angry. We both were. I said things I’m not proud of. But I never threatened her. I never showed up drunk. And I never touched her.”
I believe him.
Not because he sounds sincere, but rather because Brooke’s story is too polished and Grant is too close to it.
“So then why did you split up?”
“That’s between me and Brooke.”
“She used you as an alibi for my husband.”
“What?”
I close my eyes.
The sentence sounds worse outside my head.
“Grant said he spent Friday night helping Brooke because you were there. Brooke confirmed it.”
“And where was your husband?”
“With another woman,” I say.
“Jesus,” Evan sighs.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I need to understand why she would help him,” I say.
“You said he needed an alibi?”
“Yes.”
“Then he paid.”
The answer is so immediate that I sit up straighter. “Why would you say that?”
“Because money is the only thing Brooke lies for more than attention.”
“That’s cruel.”
“It’s also why we’re not together. Brooke had credit cards I didn’t know about. Personal loans. Store accounts. Those buy-now-pay-later things spread across different apps.”
“How much?”
“When I found everything? Close to sixty thousand.”
My fingers tighten around the phone. “She told me you controlled all the money.”
“I tried to stop losing it.”
“She said you left her with nothing.”
“I paid half the debt and gave her everything else. Six months later she called me, asking for another ten grand.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“No.”
“And she hasn’t spoken to you since…”
“She speaks to me when she wants more money. The rest of the time, it’s abusive.”
The bitterness is flat.
Used up.
“Does she still owe that much?”
“I don’t know. But Brooke doesn’t stop spending because the numbers get scary. She just stops opening the statements.”
I hear a floorboard creak upstairs.
I lower my voice. “Thank you.”
“Tessa.”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever she tells you next, get proof.”
“I intend to.”
I end the call.
I open Grant’s company accounts.
This part is easy.
Grant calls himself founder and chief executive officer.
I handle the books.
The first payment appears three months ago.
BELLI CONSULTING - $800
I stare at it.
It’s almost too obvious.
Brooke. Ellison.
BELLI…
Brooke does not consult. She struggled to choose a restaurant without reading twenty reviews and changing her mind in the parking lot.
I search that same name.
Five payments appear.
All eight hundred dollars each. All coded as consulting.
I open my private note and compare the dates.
The first payment follows the night Brooke called me because her kitchen pipe supposedly burst. Grant left at nine and returned at midnight.
The second follows the night Brooke thought someone was following her home.
The third comes after an emergency involving Evan and a threatening voicemail.
The fourth appears the morning after Brooke claimed she locked herself out of her place and Grant drove across town to help.
Friday’s payment has not posted yet.
I refresh the account.
Then I look at the company inbox.
I find it.
Payment Scheduled: BELLI CONSULTING - $800
Today’s date.
My skin goes cold.
The patterns are comforting until you understand what they mean.
Brooke has a rate.
Grant has a system.
Each time he wants Sienna, Brooke creates a disaster.
She does not simply lie when he asks.
She performs fear.
She calls me crying.
She tells me Evan is unstable.
She lets me worry about her.
Then she takes my husband’s money.
Our money.
Money from the company I help run.
Eight hundred dollars at a time.
I download every statement.
I save every transaction.
I screenshot the scheduled payment and add it to the note beneath Sienna’s name.
Upstairs, the shower turns on.
Grant is awake.
Soon he will come downstairs hungry and hungover.
He will ask what we have planned today even though the family calendar is mounted beside the refrigerator.
Brooke will probably text me.
She will ask whether I am angry.
She will act wounded when I say no.
That is what they both need from me.
Normal.
Trusting.
Busy enough to miss what is happening directly in front of me.
I close the account and open the electric bill.
Grant walks into the room ten minutes later wearing sweatpants and smelling like my shampoo.
He kisses my cheek. “Morning.”
“Almost afternoon.”
“Did I make an ass of myself?”
“Yes.”
He grins. “At least I’m consistent.”
More than he knows.
He reaches for my coffee.
I move it before he can take a drink.
His eyebrows lift.
“Make your own,” I say.
He laughs. He thinks I’m teasing.
His phone buzzes.
Grant glances at the screen and tries to hide it.
Too late.
I see Brooke’s name.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. She’s thanking us for yesterday.”
“Tell her I said hello,” I say.
Grant types something.
I watch the man I married send a message to the woman I trusted.
Neither of them knows I have found the invoices.
That is the advantage of being underestimated.
People keep conducting business as usual while you quietly learn where everything is buried.
Brooke did not sleep with my husband.
She did something colder.
She billed him.