“You tell me.”
I pulled the folder toward me.
Inside was a single envelope.
On the front, Claire had written:
The part you will want to blame on Tessa.
I stared at the words.
For the first time since the messages began, I felt something colder than confusion.
Fear.
Not fear of losing Tessa.
Not fear of what my family thought.
Fear that the story I had repeated so confidently had been built around something I had never bothered to examine.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a printed email exchange between Claire and Tessa.
The first message was dated eleven months earlier.
Before I had told Claire about the affair.
Before I had moved my clothes into the guest room.
Before I had decided that our marriage was already over.
The subject line read:
About Daniel’s company and the money he doesn’t know about.
I read Claire’s message first.
Tessa, I’m not asking you to leave him. I’m asking you to understand what he has done.
My pulse began to pound.
The next message was Tessa’s reply.
I know about the account. Daniel told me. He said you were the one who emptied it.
I looked at Emily.
She had gone pale.
“What account?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
I returned to the papers.
Claire had attached a bank statement.
The account was in my name.
The balance was nearly zero.
But beneath it was a transaction history showing that, for six years, money had been transferred out every month into another account.
An account I didn’t recognize.
At the bottom of the page, Claire had written one sentence.
Daniel, ask Tessa who really received the money—and why she believed I would never find out.
