Chapter 4 - The Husband I Thought I Knew
Thomas had been dead twenty-eight years.
For almost three decades, I had remembered him as a gentle man who drank terrible instant coffee, sang off-key while washing dishes, and carried Lauren around the apartment when she couldn’t sleep.
Now Richard Whitmore was telling me that my husband had worked for one of Virginia’s wealthiest families.
Not as an accountant.
As an investigator.
Thomas had been hired internally after money began disappearing from Whitmore Development.
Millions.
Fake contractors.
Inflated invoices.
Shell companies.
Richard’s father believed an employee was stealing.
Thomas discovered something worse.
The theft was coming from inside the family.
“Who?” I asked.
Richard looked away.
“My father.”
I stared.
“Your father hired Thomas to investigate himself?”
“No. My uncle hired him.”
Richard explained that his father, Arthur Whitmore, had secretly diverted company money for years.
Thomas assembled evidence.
Then he disappeared from the investigation.
Six months later, he married me.
Five years later, he died in what police called a highway accident.
My knees weakened.
“Are you saying Thomas was killed?”
“No.”
Richard answered too quickly.
I noticed.
“So you’ve considered it.”
“Yes.”
Lauren suddenly interrupted.
“Mom, please stop.”
I turned.
She looked terrified.
Not embarrassed.
Terrified.
That was new.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing.”
“Lauren.”
“I said nothing.”
Ethan approached from the reception entrance.
“What’s happening?”
Lauren immediately moved toward him.
“Nothing. We need to go inside.”
Ethan looked at her.
“You’ve spent our entire wedding lying.”
“I was trying to protect today.”
“From your mother?”
“From all of this!”
She gestured toward Richard.
Toward me.
Toward the photograph.
And suddenly I understood.
Lauren knew there was a connection before the wedding.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
“That’s why you kept Ethan away from me.”
She started crying.
“Mom…”
“You knew the Whitmores had known your father.”
“I found the picture six months ago.”
“Where?”
“In Dad’s old files.”
I froze.
Thomas’s files had been stored in my attic for decades.
Lauren had taken several boxes when she moved into her first apartment because she wanted photographs.
“What else did you find?”
She didn’t answer.
Ethan stared at his new wife.
“Lauren?”
Finally she whispered:
“A ledger.”
Richard’s expression changed instantly.
“What ledger?”
Lauren began backing away.
“It’s nothing.”
Richard stepped closer.
“What color?”
She looked confused.
“What?”
“The cover. What color was it?”
“Dark green.”
Richard went completely pale.
I knew then that the ledger mattered.
“Where is it?”
Lauren looked at me.
“I gave it away.”
“To whom?”
She started crying harder.
“To someone who promised me that if I gave it to him, nobody would ever have to know what Dad did.”
I stared at her.
“Who?”
Before she could answer, a champagne glass shattered behind us.
Diane Whitmore stood near the reception doors.
Her hand was empty.
Her face was white.
Then she whispered:
“Lauren, tell me you didn’t give it to Charles.”
Richard turned sharply toward his wife.
“Charles?”
Diane covered her mouth.
May you like
And Ethan asked the question none of us expected.
“Who the hell is Charles?”
