2. The Secret Ledger
Chapter two
The Secret Ledger
My key slid into the front door lock at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon. I’d spent the last ten hours downtown in my corporate office, making preparations, clearing out my email inbox, and carefully locking my panic into a manageable box.
I turned the deadbolt, letting the door swing open over the hardwood foyer. Immediately, the bright, grating sound of my sister’s laughter echoed from the kitchen.
I left my suitcase by the door and walked down the hall, my rubber-soled flats making absolutely no sound against the floorboards.
Ian and Piper were sitting at the kitchen island, looking sickeningly comfortable.
Piper was wearing her expensive workout leggings and a cropped tank top, swirling a glass of iced tea while she leaned against the marble counter.
Ian stood opposite her in his work trousers, his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up.
He was looking at my sister with a soft, affectionate smile I hadn’t seen directed at me in years.
“Look who’s home,” he said, his voice entirely devoid of panic.
He and Piper looked exactly like two innocent people passing the time on a Tuesday afternoon. The sheer audacity made me want to throw up.
Ian walked around the island and wrapped an arm around my waist. He pressed a firm kiss to my temple. It took every ounce of willpower I had to not shove him away. I forced my muscles to remain loose while the faint scent of Piper’s vanilla perfume wafted off his collar.
“Hey, Gemma,” Piper chimed in, shooting me a bright smile. “Your flight must have been brutal. You look completely exhausted.”
“The client moved the wrap-up meeting, so I’ve been traveling all day,” I said. Then, I dropped my purse onto the counter and turned to Ian. “Did you remember Tucker’s pill last night?”
Ian didn’t miss a single beat. “Of course I did. Ten o’clock sharp, wrapped in a slice of cheddar. He didn’t even put up a fight.”
I stared at him for a fraction of a second. On camera, I’d watched him kick the dog away so he could continue sleeping with my sister on our couch. Now he was lying to my face with the casual confidence of a man discussing the weather.
“Good,” I murmured, leaning hard into the role of the drained wife they expected me to be. “I’m dead on my feet. I’m just going to take a shower and decompress.”
“Go get some rest, babe,” Ian said, squeezing my hip with a sickeningly familiar affection. “I’ll handle dinner.”
I offered them both a tired smile, turned my back, and walked up the stairs.
I survived the rest of the evening by playing a ghost in my own home.
Piper eventually left, and Ian ordered Thai takeout.
We sat at the kitchen table while he spent twenty minutes talking about tech stocks and a new podcast he’d listened to.
I nodded in all the right places, chewed my noodles, and tasted absolutely nothing.
By ten o’clock, I had given Tucker his actual medication, and Ian and I were lying in bed.
The room was pitch-black, save for the faint orange glow of the streetlamp filtering through the blinds. I lay flat on my back, staring up at the invisible ceiling. The heavy duvet pressed down on my chest.
Beside me, the mattress shifted as Ian rolled over.
I held my breath.
His hand reached out in the dark and rested squarely on my hip. His fingers stroked my side in a familiar rhythm he used when he wanted to initiate sex.
Revulsion flooded my system, bitter and immediate. The memory of the feed flashed behind my eyelids, perfectly replaying his hands buried in Piper’s hair and the wet sound of their kiss. The way they’d moved together on the couch.
My mind began to race. If I shoved him away or snapped at him, he would immediately know something was wrong. Ian was lazy, but he wasn’t completely stupid. A sudden rejection would make him wonder. He’d start asking questions. He’d begin covering his tracks.
But if I let him touch me, I genuinely thought my skin would crawl right off my bones.
His hand slid higher, brushing the hem of my sleep shirt. “You awake?” he whispered, his voice dropping, thick with intent.
I was completely paralyzed, trapped between two impossible choices. I’d never been more awake in my life, and I hated myself for it.
Then came the sharp sound of claws dragging against the wood of the bedroom door, followed by an insistent, pathetic whine.
I moved so fast I practically threw the duvet off the bed. “Tucker,” I gasped, injecting just enough urgency into my voice. “He needs to go out.”
Ian groaned loudly, his hand falling flat against the mattress. “Jesus, Gemma. Can’t he wait ten minutes?”
“You know he wouldn’t be scratching at the door unless he really had to go,” I said, my bare feet hitting the cold hardwood. I grabbed my robe from the foot of the bed and tied it tight around my waist. “I’m not cleaning up a mess on the rug. I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t wait for his response. I opened the door, greeted by the thumping tail of my golden retriever, and stepped out into the hallway. “Good boy,” I mouthed at him. “You’re such a good boy.”
I had no idea if Tucker had known I needed him or if he’d truly wanted to be let out. But when he licked my palm, it really felt like I had an ally. Even now, even here in the home I shared with my enemy.
Behind me, Ian let out a frustrated sigh, and the mattress squeaked as he sat up. “Forget it,” he called out. “I’m taking a shower.”
I stopped at the top of the stairs and closed my eyes. The sound of the bathroom door clicking shut was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. A moment later, the pipes groaned in the walls, and the steady rush of the showerhead kicked on.
I walked downstairs, opened the back door to let Tucker out onto the lawn, and turned straight toward Ian’s home office. This was my chance.
The room was dark and smelled faintly of his expensive sandalwood cologne. Bypassing the overhead light, I walked directly to the mahogany desk, sat in his leather chair, and flipped open his laptop.
The screen flared to life and prompted me for a password.
Ian firmly believed he was a mastermind, a man playing three-dimensional chess while the rest of the world played checkers. But he used the exact same password for his laptop that he did for our Wi-Fi router, his streaming profiles, and his tablet.
I typed ColemanAlpha99! and hit Enter.
The desktop instantly unlocked.
Checking the clock at the top-right corner of the screen, I noted it was ten-fourteen. Ian took notoriously long showers when he was sulking over a perceived rejection. That gave me roughly ten to fifteen minutes before the water turned off.
I launched his web browser, finding him already logged into his personal email.
I opened a new tab and navigated to the website for our joint bank.
Because we shared the primary account, his browser automatically filled in the login credentials.
I could just hit Submit and wait for the dashboard to load.
I stared at the financial breakdown. Our joint checking account was sitting at a comfortable balance. But right below it, under his name, was a second, individual account I had never seen before.
I clicked on it.
The ledger loaded, revealing a scrolling list of transactions spanning the last eight months.
The deposits were all transfers from our joint account.
They ranged from five hundred to a thousand dollars at a time.
He always labeled them as comfortably vague expenses like ‘car maintenance’ or ‘anniversary savings’.
I scrolled down to the withdrawals.
Zelle Transfer: Piper Harding - $400 (Dinner)
Zelle Transfer: Piper Harding - $1,200 (Dress fitting)
Zelle Transfer: Piper Harding - $850 (Gifts)
I scanned the numbers, doing the math as I scrolled. In the last six months, he had funneled nearly fifteen thousand dollars of my salary directly into my sister’s pockets.
A cold, methodical calm settled over me. I was no longer a grieving wife. I was an auditor, and I had just found the fraud.
I minimized the bank window and clicked over to his email inbox. I typed the word wedding into the search bar. Dozens of emails populated the screen. I filtered them by attachments and clicked on an email chain from a high-end florist downtown.
I opened the attached PDF. It was a finalized contract for floral arrangements. The total was staggering, extending far beyond the budget Spencer had originally agreed to pay. I scrolled down to the second page and found the exact charge I was looking for.
Line Item 14: Structural Rigging & Support - $12,200.00
I stared at the words. The memory of their mocking laughter rang in my ears. Piper had joked about me paying for her hanging orchids.
I pulled a small flash drive from the top drawer of the desk. It was a promotional freebie from a marketing conference. I plugged it into the side of the laptop.
I worked with ruthless efficiency. I downloaded the floral contract.
I followed it with the caterer’s revised invoice, which included an extra eighteen thousand dollars for a premium open bar upgrade that Spencer had explicitly vetoed.
Then, I pulled six months of bank statements from the secret account, along with an entire zip file of his local email backups just to be safe.
I dragged the massive cache into a folder titled Q3_Projections.
The progress bar on the screen crawled slowly from left to right. Copying 15 items (4.2 GB).
I strained to listen over the hum of the laptop fan. The shower was still running upstairs.
Ian was treating my bank account like his personal slush fund. He was setting up a life where he got to play the wealthy, generous benefactor to Piper, all while I worked sixty-hour weeks to keep the lights on.
The progress bar hit ninety-five percent.
The water pipes in the walls gave a sudden shudder. The distant roar of the shower abruptly stopped.
My heart started beating faster, but I didn’t leave the office. I couldn’t afford to. Not yet.
Finally, the confirmation appeared. Complete.
I didn’t hesitate. I right-clicked the icon, ejected the flash drive, and yanked it free. After ensuring no tabs were left open, I closed the browser and shut the laptop.
Standing up, I shoved the metal drive deep into the pocket of my robe. I slid the leather desk chair back to the exact angle at which Ian always left it.
I stepped out of the office and pulled the door shut just as Tucker scratched at the back door. I let the dog inside, double-checked the deadbolt, and moved quietly up the stairs.
As I reached the top landing, the master bathroom door opened. Heavy footsteps thudded out onto the hardwood.
Ian stood in the hallway. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and his hair was dripping wet. His expression was still sour from the perceived rejection in bed.
“Did he handle his business?” Ian asked, his tone clipped.
“Yes,” I said smoothly, stepping past him into the bedroom. My hand rested casually in my robe pocket, fingers wrapped tightly around the cool metal edge of the flash drive. “Took him a minute to find a spot.”
“Right,” Ian muttered. He dropped his towel in the hamper and headed toward the bed. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
I stood in the dark until he climbed into bed and his breathing leveled out. My thumb traced the edge of the drive hidden in my pocket. I felt the tangible weight of the bank statements and the indisputable paper trail.
Ian firmly believed he was the smartest man in our house. He was about to find out exactly what happens when you underestimate the woman balancing your checkbook.