Chapter 3 - The Price of My Patience
Luis printed every payment tied to JMH Consulting.
The total made me nauseous.
One hundred eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars.
Gone.
I sat in my office staring at the number.
“That can’t be right.”
Luis didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
The records were right in front of us.
I had spent years worrying about payroll.
I had skipped vacations.
I had worked through fevers.
I had missed school lunches and neighborhood barbecues because I believed every dollar mattered.
Meanwhile, money had been quietly leaving my company.
Month after month.
Year after year.
I called Olivia.
She told me not to confront anyone.
“Preserve everything.”
“I want to call Mark right now.”
“That’s what they expect.”
“I want him to explain.”
“If this is fraud, explanations can wait.”
Fraud.
The word sounded too large for my marriage.
Mark was selfish.
Weak.
Cowardly.
But criminal?
I still wasn’t ready to believe that.
Then Luis opened another file.
The person who approved nearly every JMH payment was Mark.
My husband.
I felt something inside me go completely quiet.
Luis pointed at one transaction.
“This one is strange.”
The payment memo read EVENT CONSULTING - LAKE HOUSE.
I didn’t own a lake house.
Neither did the business.
But Diane did.
Three years earlier, she had suddenly purchased a beautiful lake property.
She told everyone she had received money from an investment.
At the time, Jenna had laughed and called her mother “secretly rich.”
I had brought champagne to celebrate.
Now I wondered whether I had helped pay for the house.
My phone rang again.
Mark.
This time I answered.
“Where are the kids?”
His voice was sharp.
“At school.”
“You had no right to take them away from me.”
“I took them away from a room where your sister assaulted me.”
“She shouldn’t have hit you.”
It was the first time he admitted it.
Then he added the sentence that made it meaningless.
“But you hit her too.”
I closed my eyes.
“After she hit me.”
“You escalated it.”
I almost couldn’t believe him.
“Mark, she slapped me in my own house.”
“You were provoking everyone.”
“How?”
“You were staring at me like you wanted me to choose sides.”
I laughed once.
“You were my husband.”
Silence.
Then he lowered his voice.
“Rachel, come home.”
“No.”
“We can fix this.”
“What is JMH Consulting?”
The silence changed.
I felt it immediately.
It became heavy.
Alert.
Dangerous.
“Where did you hear that?”
“You didn’t answer me.”
“It’s bookkeeping.”
“For what?”
“Family expenses.”
“My company paid your mother nearly two hundred thousand dollars.”
“That money benefited all of us.”
“How?”
He exhaled.
“You don’t understand the whole picture.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can’t do this over the phone.”
“No, Mark.”
My voice surprised even me.
“You can.”
He stayed quiet.
Then I heard another voice in the background.
Diane.
“Hang up.”
Mark covered the phone, but not quickly enough.
I heard her again.
“Do not tell her anything.”
My blood turned cold.
Mark returned.
“We’ll talk later.”
“No.”
I gripped the phone.
“We’ll talk through lawyers.”
He swore.
Then I ended the call.
Five minutes later, an email arrived from our bank.
A scheduled transfer for $45,000 had been canceled.
The recipient was JMH Consulting.
The transfer date was tomorrow.
May you like
Our anniversary had never been the celebration.
It had been the deadline.
