Chapter 9: Four Blocks Away
The address was a converted Victorian on a tree-lined street I had driven down dozens of times.
I knew the building.
I had once admired the ironwork on the front gate.
I sat outside in my car for ten minutes before I called Grace back.
"Tell me," I said.
"The lease is in the LLC's name, but the utility accounts are registered to a personal name.
Corinne set it up, but she's not the one living there." Grace paused.
"The name on the utilities is Weston Hale."
"He has his own apartment four blocks from my house."
"For fourteen months.
The lease started two months after he moved in with you."
I looked at the building.
Third floor, Grace had said.
The window up there had its light on.
"He was living with me," I said slowly.
"He had a key to my house.
He slept in my bed.
And he was paying rent on a separate apartment four blocks away."
"With money from the LLC.
Which means with money that traces back, at least in part, to the funds he obtained from the complainants."
"What's in the apartment?"
"I don't have access to the interior.
But I spoke to the building manager — carefully, without identifying myself or you.
She said the tenant uses it irregularly.
Sometimes weeks go by.
Then he'll be there several nights in a row."
I thought about the nights Weston had said he was staying at the office.
The startup had no real office.
He'd always worked from my house, or from coffee shops, or from wherever he happened to be.
But occasionally — maybe once a month, sometimes more — he'd said he needed to sleep at the office because of an early call, a server issue, a deadline.
I had never questioned it.
"Is there someone else?" I said.
"Another woman?"
"The building manager mentioned he sometimes had a guest.
Female.
She didn't have a name."
I put my head back against the headrest.
"Ava," Grace said.
"Do you want me to keep looking?"
"No," I said.
"I have enough."
"Are you sure?
Because—"
"I have enough," I said again.
"I have more than enough.
I have two hundred and thirty thousand dollars of documented fraud, four other women, a shell company, a mother who is a co-conspirator, and an apartment four blocks from my house that he's been paying for with stolen money." I took a breath.
"I don't need to know about one more woman.
It doesn't change anything."
"All right."
"Send the full report to my solicitor.
And copy Richard Holt."
"Already done."
I thanked her and ended the call.
I sat outside the building for another minute.
The light in the third-floor window was still on.
Then I drove home.
Weston was sitting on my front steps.
He stood when he saw my car.
He was still wearing the grey jacket.
He looked tired in a way that might have moved me once — the particular exhaustion of someone who had been holding too many things together for too long.
I understood now what he had actually been holding together.
"Ava." He came toward the car as I got out.
"Please.
Just let me talk to you."
"You should leave," I said.
"I'm not leaving.
Not until you hear me out." He stepped closer.
"I know you've been looking into things.
I know you've been talking to people.
But you don't have the full picture—"
"I have a very full picture."
"You have other people's versions.
You don't have mine." His voice shifted — lower, more careful.
"I made mistakes.
I know that.
But I am not a crjminal.
I am a man who got in over his head and made bad choices and I am asking you — I am begging you — not to destroy our family over this."
"You don't have a family," I said.
"You have an apartment four blocks away that you've been paying for with Dani's money and Carol's money and Paulette's money and Simone's money and mine."
His face went very still.
"The building on Ashford Street," I said.
"Third floor.
Fourteen months."
He didn't speak.
"I know about the LLC.
I know about your mother's role.
I know about the other women before Dani.
I know about the fraud investigation." I looked at him steadily.
"Richard Holt sends his regards."
Weston's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
"Get off my steps," I said.
"And don't come back."
He didn't move for a moment.
Then something changed in his expression — the careful, calculated grief evaporated and something colder came through underneath.
"You think you can just end this?" he said.
"I'll fight for custody.
I'll tie this up in court for years.
You'll spend more on lawyers than you ever spent on me."
"Maybe," I said.
"But I'll spend it on my child.
Not on your apartment."
I walked past him, unlocked my front door, and went inside.
I stood in my hallway and listened to the silence of my own house.
My house.
Paid for by me, owned by me, built by the same years of work that he had been quietly draining.
My phone buzzed one final time that night.
It was Dani.
*I heard from Richard Holt.
They're moving forward.
Are you okay?*
I typed back: *Getting there.
Thank you for calling me.*
Her reply came quickly.
*Thank you for picking up.*
I set the phone on the kitchen counter and stood there for a moment in the quiet.
Then I went to bed.
May you like
Alone, in my own house, with my hand resting on my stomach.
And for the first time in weeks, I slept.
