Chapter 5: What the Statements Showed
Dana opened her front door before Ryan even knocked.
She had seen the car pull up from the window.
She took one look at Sophie — the tangled hair, the hollow cheeks, the rabbit held tight against her chest — and she pulled the little girl in without a word.
"Come here, sweetheart.
Come on."
Sophie went to her without hesitation.
Children know safe people.
Dana looked at Ryan over Sophie's head.
Her expression asked the question.
Ryan nodded once.
"Get her fed," he said quietly.
"Whatever she wants."
Dana took Sophie to the kitchen.
Ryan sat down at the dining table and opened his laptop.
He pulled up the joint account first.
January through June.
Six months of transactions.
He went through them slowly.
The rent was there.
The utilities were there.
The car insurance was there.
He moved past those and started looking at the grocery charges.
The first thing he noticed was the store.
Every grocery charge for the past six months was from Harmon's Fine Foods — the specialty market on the north side of town, the one with the imported cheeses and the prepared meal counter.
Not the regular supermarket two blocks from the house where he had always done the shopping.
He pulled up the amounts.
January: $612.
February: $588.
March: $741.
April: $693.
May: $819.
June: $874.
He sat back.
He had budgeted $400 a month for groceries.
He had said that clearly before he left.
Four hundred dollars for a household of three — himself, Sophie, and Kelly and Mason as guests while Kelly got back on her feet after her divorce.
That was the arrangement.
Temporary.
Three months, maybe four.
He had been gone six.
He opened a new tab and pulled up Harmon's Fine Foods website.
He looked at their prepared meal section.
Roast turkey, full bird: $67.
Imported prosciutto: $24 per quarter pound.
The artisan cheese selection started at $18.
He looked at the dining table in his memory.
The feast.
The full plates.
The turkey.
Then he looked at the pantry in his memory.
The oatmeal.
The peanut butter.
The plastic spoon.
He kept going through the statements.
There were charges he didn't recognize.
A spa on Meridian Avenue: $160 in March.
Another: $145 in May.
A clothing boutique downtown: $312 in April.
A restaurant — not a grocery store, a sit-down restaurant — on a Tuesday afternoon in February: $94.
He wrote down every charge he didn't recognize.
By the time he finished, the list was eleven items long.
Total: $1,847 over six months.
On top of the inflated grocery bills.
Dana came back from the kitchen and sat across from him.
"She ate two bowls of pasta," she said quietly.
"And then she asked me if she could save the rest for tomorrow."
Ryan looked up.
"She asked to save it."
"She said she didn't want to run out." Dana's voice was careful and even, the way people speak when they are holding something very large very still.
"Ryan.
How long has this been going on?"
"At least since January.
Maybe longer." He turned the laptop toward her.
"Look at the grocery charges."
Dana looked.
She scrolled slowly.
Her face did not change expression, which meant she was working very hard to keep it that way.
"The spa charges," she said.
"Yeah."
"The boutique."
"Yeah."
"And Sophie was eating peanut butter out of a jar with a plastic spoon."
"The jar was in a high cabinet.
She couldn't reach it."
Dana closed the laptop carefully.
She put both hands flat on the table.
"You need a lawyer," she said.
"Not tomorrow.
Tonight.
Call Marcus — he does family law, he owes you a favor.
Call him right now."
"It's nine o'clock—"
"Call him."
Ryan looked at his phone.
Then at the closed laptop.
Then at the hallway where Sophie had gone to sleep in the big bed with the kitchen light left on because Dana had noticed, without being told, that Sophie needed to be able to see it.
He picked up the phone.
Marcus answered on the third ring.
"Ryan.
What's wrong?"
Ryan looked at the list of charges on the paper in front of him.
"I need to know what I can do," he said.
"Tonight.
Right now."
A pause.
"Tell me what happened."
Ryan told him.
All of it.
The bin.
The bone.
The padlock.
The pantry.
The statements.
The spa.
The boutique.
The turkey on the table and the oatmeal on the shelf.
When he finished, Marcus was quiet for a moment.
"Does she have any legal claim to the child?"
"None.
Sophie is mine.
Kelly is my former housemate.
She has no parental rights."
"Is Kelly on the lease?"
Ryan stopped.
He had never added her to the lease.
She had moved in as a temporary guest.
He had never formalized it.
"No," he said.
"Then she has no tenancy rights either," Marcus said.
"Ryan, listen to me carefully.
Document everything tonight.
Every photograph, every statement, every word Sophie said.
Write it all down with timestamps.
And tomorrow morning, first thing, we file."
"File what?"
"Everything," Marcus said.
"Financial misappropriation.
Child neglect.
And an immediate notice to vacate."
Ryan looked at the list in his hand.
"She threatened to tell people I abandoned Sophie by working out of state."
Marcus made a short sound.
Not quite a laugh.
"Let her," he said.
"You have bank records showing you sent money every month.
You have a work contract showing you were employed.
And you have a four-year-old who asked your sister to save her leftovers because she was afraid of running out of food." A pause.
"Ryan.
She has nothing."
Ryan exhaled slowly.
From down the hall came a small sound — Sophie, shifting in her sleep, calling out once, then going quiet again.
Dana got up without being asked and walked toward the bedroom to check on her.
Ryan looked at the laptop.
The statements.
The list.
"Marcus," he said.
"One more thing.
The money she spent.
The spa.
The boutique.
The restaurant.
Can I recover it?"
May you like
A pause.
"That," Marcus said, "is exactly what we're going to find out."
