Chapter 1 - Ten New Numbers
The judge’s pen had barely left the divorce decree when my father grabbed my wrist.
“Emily. Sit down.”
I stared at him.
Around us, attorneys, couples, and courthouse employees moved through the corridor as though my twelve-year marriage had not just been reduced to signatures and stamped paper.
“Dad, I need five minutes.”
“No. You need five minutes less than Daniel thinks he has.”
That got my attention.
Richard Hayes had spent thirty-two years investigating financial fraud before retiring. He could spot a forged signature from across a conference table and had an almost irritating habit of becoming calmer when everyone else became frightened.
He pointed at my phone.
“Change every PIN.”
“Daniel doesn’t know my PINs.”
My father’s eyes hardened.
“Change them.”
I obeyed.
Personal checking.
Savings.
Corporate operating account.
Emergency credit.
Travel card.
Business card.
Even the matte-black corporate card Daniel had been authorized to use years ago when he was still my husband.
Ten accounts.
Ten new codes.
When I finished, Dad took a slow breath.
“Now revoke every secondary authorization.”
I looked up.
“That wasn't part of the settlement.”
“This isn't about the settlement.”
Before I could ask what he meant, heels clicked behind us.
Daniel.
My ex-husband looked infuriatingly good for a man who had spent the previous six months tearing apart our marriage.
Vanessa Cole hung on his arm.
Thirty-two. Beautiful. Smug.
The woman Daniel had insisted was “only a consultant” until photographs made that lie impossible.
Daniel slowed.
“Try not to cry too hard, Em.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Some women simply don’t know how to keep a man.”
I should have been devastated.
Instead, something about my father’s warning had changed the temperature of the moment.
I smiled.
“Some men don’t know how to read a bank statement.”
Daniel’s smile twitched.
Then he walked away.
Dad watched him disappear into the elevator.
“You shouldn't have said that.”
“Why?”
“Because now he knows you know something.”
“I don’t know anything.”
Dad looked at me.
“That’s what worries me.”
At 8:40 that night, I was sitting alone in my apartment when an automated security notification appeared.
Attempted charge: $998,214.
Aurum House.
My mouth fell open.
Daniel had tried to spend nearly a million dollars using my corporate privileges.
I immediately called Dad.
He answered after one ring.
“Don’t approve anything.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Where?”
“Aurum House.”
Silence.
Then I heard something I had almost never heard from Richard Hayes.
Fear.
“Emily, listen carefully. Do not call Daniel.”
“Dad?”
“I’m coming.”
“Why?”
Another pause.
“Because if Vanessa Cole is with him, that charge was never meant to go through.”
I stood.
“What are you talking about?”
But Dad had already disconnected.
Twenty-three minutes later, he appeared at my door wearing the same dark suit from court.
He carried an old leather folder.
And before we left, I saw two words written across it in my mother's handwriting.
May you like
Aurum House.
My mother had been dead for twenty-one years.
