Chapter 14
The divorce is in mediation now. Heather says it should finalize by October if both sides cooperate. Marco's lawyer isn't fighting the dissipation claim — the evidence is too clean. Handwritten list. Bank records. A signed repayment agreement from the third party.
I don't respond to any of them. I just don't have anything to say that isn't already in the filing.
Hi. I'm sorry to message you out of the blue.
My name is Sadie. I'm a photographer in Columbus.
This is going to sound strange but — do you know a woman named Brooke Ellison?
She moved to my neighborhood two months ago and she's been coming to my house almost every night.
My husband says they're just friends. I found your name in her contacts on a phone she left at our place.
I read it three times. Then I put the phone down and finish charting the code.
At 3:48 AM I read it again.
Brooke moved to Columbus. Two months ago — that's when her lease payments stopped. She defaulted on the apartment Marco co-signed, left Connecticut, and went to Ohio. And now she's doing it again. New city. New friend. New husband.
The same pattern.
I sit at the nurses' station and I think about what Sadie just told me.
"Coming to my house almost every night." That's how it started with us too.
Brooke needed company. Brooke was lonely.
Brooke just wanted to be around people. And the husband — always the husband — was there.
Being kind. Being generous. Being exploitable.
I type back: Get your bank statements. Now. Check for any transfers to her — Zelle, Venmo, cash withdrawals that don't match your spending. Check how often your husband is at her apartment. And don't tell either of them you're looking.
Sent.
Three dots appear immediately. Sadie is awake. It's 3:48 AM in Ohio too — one timezone behind, so 2:48 for her. Nobody is awake at 2:48 AM with good news.
How much did she take from you?
I pause. My thumbs hover over the screen.
$23,000. Over four months. She also slept with my husband. It started small — favors, then money, then everything. Her pattern is: befriend the wife, identify the husband's weakness, exploit it until she's funded, then disappear when it gets too close to exposure.
A long pause. Then:
Oh my god. My husband fixed her door lock last week. And her garbage disposal. He said it took two hours.
My breath catches. Garbage disposal. Two hours. The same lie. The exact same lie.
It didn't take two hours, I write. And it wasn't the garbage disposal she needed fixed.
Silence. Two minutes. Then:
What do I do?
I think about this. I'm standing in a hospital at 3 AM — the hour when I'm sharpest, when my brain processes cleanest, when the world is quiet enough to think properly.
Document everything. Bank statements, his phone if you can check it, her schedule versus his. Don't confront yet — you need data first. And talk to a lawyer. Before you talk to him or her, talk to a lawyer.
Thank you. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour.
I work nights. This is my daytime.
Can I call you? Tomorrow? Or — today, I mean. Later.
Yes. After 4 PM EST.
Thank you, Nina.
I put the phone away. My hands are steady — four seconds, color returns, four seconds, color returns. But something in my chest is moving that I can't count.
She's doing it again. The same playbook. New city, new name maybe, new target. Befriend the wife. Identify the generous husband. Ask for help. Escalate. Fund the lifestyle. Sleep with him when the money creates enough intimacy. Then leave.
Brooke didn't make a mistake with me. She ran a system. And she's running it again on a woman named Sadie in Columbus.
I think about whether this is my problem. It's not. I have my divorce, my payments, my plan. Brooke is in Ohio — far from me. Her patterns are not my responsibility.
But.
That woman in Columbus is me. Three months ago. Sleeping through it. Trusting. Counting money that's already gone without knowing it.
I was alone with the secret for a week before I figured it out. Nobody warned me. Nobody said "check your bank statements."
I just told Sadie to check hers.
At 7 AM I give report. Walk out. In the car I sit for five minutes — thinking, not counting.
Brooke is a pattern. A repeating decimal. She'll keep doing this until someone stops her or she runs out of new cities.
I can't stop her. But I can warn the next one.
I drive home. Set my alarm. But before I sleep, I open my phone and add Sadie's number to my contacts. Label: SADIE - COLUMBUS.
Then I open a new note:
brOOKE'S PATTERN:
1. Identify a stable couple
2. Befriend the wife
3. Create a need (job loss, divorce, crisis)
4. Ask husband for small favors
5. Escalate to money
6. Escalate to intimacy
7. Fund lifestyle using husband's money
8. Disappear when exposed or satisfied
9. Move to new city
10. Repeat
I stare at the list. Ten steps. Clean. Measurable. Predictable.
If I'd had this list six months ago — if someone had handed me these ten points and said "this is what your best friend is doing" — would I have believed them?
No. I wouldn't. Because she was my friend. Because I was tired. Because night shift made me absent and absence made me blind.
But Sadie might believe it. Because Sadie is at the beginning, and I'm at the end, and the view is different from here.
I set my alarm. Close my eyes.
I count to one hundred and twelve. Then I'm gone.