Chapter 11 - Nathan'S Real Debt
Dana opened three bank portals before sunrise.
By 5:10 a.m., the number on her spreadsheet had crossed one million.
By 5:32, it hit 1.8.
I stared at the total.
“Gambling?”
“Not mostly.”
Dana rotated the laptop.
“Look at the destination accounts.”
Five shell companies.
Two private funds.
One investment vehicle registered in Delaware.
The names meant nothing to me.
Charles recognized one.
“Hale Growth Partners.”
Dana nodded.
“It has been buying Hale Industries shares for eighteen months.”
Charles’s face tightened.
“Who owns it?”
“We’re tracing that.”
I already knew.
“Nathan.”
Dana didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
I scrolled through transactions.
Thirty thousand.
Forty-five thousand.
Eighty-two thousand.
Then I saw my father’s trust account.
My hands froze.
“No.”
Dana leaned closer.
“Emily?”
“That’s mine.”
Charles read the account name.
My father had left it to me when he died.
I had never touched most of it.
Nathan had called it our safety net.
Money sat there for emergencies.
Apparently his emergency was buying his father’s company behind everyone’s back.
“How much?” I asked.
Dana filtered the transfers.
“Four hundred twelve thousand.”
I swallowed hard.
The room hummed around me.
A police copier spit out pages.
Someone’s coffee machine clicked.
I could hear every stupid little sound.
I said, “When were the transfers made?”
Dana opened the dates.
October third.
October seventeenth.
November second.
November fifteenth.
The exact dates my blood pressure spiked.
The exact appointments where my records suddenly described confusion.
My nails dug into my palms.
“He waited until I was dizzy.”
Charles stared at the dates.
“Then used your phone or computer.”
I remembered waking from naps and finding Nathan beside me.
His hand on my forehead.
His voice gentle.
Go back to sleep. I’ve got everything.
A chair scraped behind us.
Dr. Reed had been sitting under police guard.
He looked sick.
“I never knew about the transfers.”
I turned on him.
“But you built the cover.”
He looked down.
My phone rang.
Dana answered hers at the same time.
We both froze.
Mine was Nathan.
Hers was the courthouse clerk.
Dana held up one finger.
“Hello?”
Her face tightened.
“When?”
I let Nathan’s call ring out.
Dana hung up.
“The hearing was moved up.”
“To when?”
“Eight-thirty.”
It was 6:04.
“Why?”
“Nathan claimed immediate risk to the unborn child.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
The sound frightened me.
Charles put a hand on my shoulder.
I shrugged him off.
“Can he win?”
Dana paused.
“That depends on what he filed.”
Her inbox chimed.
The petition arrived.
We read it together.
Nathan claimed I was paranoid.
That I had accused his family of poisoning me without proof.
That I had become erratic during pregnancy.
That Charles was manipulating me to seize family assets.
That I had threatened to disappear with the baby.
Then I reached the witness list.
I stopped.
Dana whispered, “Emily…”
My eyes stayed on the name.
VICTORIA HALE.
I stood so quickly the chair tipped backward.
“No.”
Charles grabbed the petition.
“That’s impossible.”
Victoria had been taken to another interview room hours earlier.
We hadn’t spoken since the lake house.
Dana said, “Her sworn declaration was filed forty minutes ago.”
“What does it say?”
She scrolled.
My stomach turned.
Victoria claimed she had witnessed emotional instability.
Memory lapses.
Suspicion.
Aggressive behavior.
Nathan had used the exact words from Dr. Reed’s fabricated notes.
Charles looked toward the police hallway.
“She betrayed us.”
I thought about Victoria giving me the brass key.
About her shaking hands.
About her admitting she had helped Rebecca escape.
None of it fit.
Unless it had all been another performance.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Victoria.
DON’T REACT WHEN I SPEAK.
I read it twice.
Then deleted it.
Dana said, “What was that?”
I slipped the phone into my bag.
“Nothing.”
At 8:21, I entered family court with my burned hand bandaged and my husband’s petition accusing me of madness under my arm.
Nathan was already there.
He smiled when he saw me.
Then the side door opened.
Victoria walked in.
Nathan stood to greet her.
May you like
She kissed his cheek.
And looked straight through me.
