Chapter 6: What Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars Buys
Patricia Osei spoke for twenty minutes.
I sat in the driver's seat with the heat running and Emma asleep in the back before the first ten minutes were done.
I didn't interrupt.
I let the attorney lay it out in the order she had assembled it — account opening date, first transfer, pattern of amounts, the LLC registered to a P.O.
box in Evanston, the single listed director: Michael Thomas Hargrove.
When she finished, I asked one question.
"Is any of this illegal?"
"Transferring money from a joint account into a private business account without a spouse's knowledge or consent is legally complicated.
In Illinois, marital assets are subject to equitable distribution.
Whether it constitutes fraud depends on intent and what the money was used for.
That's what we'd need to establish."
"How do we establish it?"
"Subpoena the LLC's records.
Bank statements.
Any contracts or invoices the business generated.
If the business did no actual work — if it's a shell — the transfers look very different to a judge."
"And if it did do actual work?"
"Then we need to understand what work, for whom, and why it was hidden from you."
I looked at the house through the windshield.
The kitchen light was still on.
"My sister brought this to you three weeks ago."
"Yes."
"She's been sitting on this for three weeks."
"She wanted to be certain before she came to you.
She said she had already caused enough damage and she wasn't going to add to it with information that turned out to be wrong."
I thought about Lauren.
About the text message.
*I know sorry isn't enough.*
"What do I do right now, tonight?"
"Tonight, you do nothing to the accounts.
Don't move money, don't close anything, don't alert him that you know.
If he suspects you've spoken to an attorney, he may move assets before we can document them."
"He's already on his laptop looking at the banking page."
A short silence.
"How do you know that?"
"I watched him through the window."
"Okay." Her voice shifted slightly — more focused.
"Can you get into that account from your own device?
Do you have joint login credentials?"
"Yes."
"When you get home tonight, log in and take screenshots of every transaction for the past eighteen months.
Don't download files.
Screenshots only, timestamped by your phone.
Send them to my email tonight."
"All right."
"And Mrs.
Hargrove — don't tell him you've spoken to me.
Not yet."
I watched Michael's shape move past the kitchen window again.
"He's going to ask where I went.
When I went back outside."
"Tell him Emma needed air.
Tell him anything calm and ordinary.
You're not lying to protect him.
You're protecting yourself long enough to understand what you're dealing with."
I nodded even though she couldn't see me.
"Okay."
"Come to my office Monday morning.
Nine o'clock.
Bring the screenshots."
"I'll be there."
I ended the call.
Emma was breathing slowly in the back seat, her head tilted against the window.
She had her grandmother's old cardigan over her lap — my mother's, not Diane's — the one she carried everywhere like a blanket.
I started the car.
Michael appeared at the front door of the house.
He saw the headlights come on.
He walked toward the car and I lowered the window.
"You're leaving now?" he said.
"Emma fell asleep.
I'm taking her home."
He looked at me carefully.
"Are you all right?"
"No," I said.
"But I'm not going to fall apart in your mother's driveway."
He nodded slowly.
"I'll come home tonight.
We can talk when Emma's in bed."
"Fine."
He stepped back.
I raised the window and pulled out of the driveway.
I drove three blocks before I had to pull over.
Not to cry.
I wasn't crying yet.
I pulled over because my hands were shaking too hard to steer.
I sat there for two minutes.
Breathed.
May you like
Watched a dog walker pass under the streetlight with a small terrier pulling at the leash.
Then I put the car in drive and took my daughter home.
