Chapter 5: The Lawyer's Advice and the Friend Who Knew
Her lawyer's name was Clifford Marsh, and he had been practicing family law for thirty-one years.
She had chosen him because a friend told her he was aggressive.
She had liked that word at the time.
She called him from the car, parked outside the mother's house.
"Tell me the prenup doesn't hold," she said.
"I've read it twice now.
It's clean.
Witnessed, notarized, filed with the county clerk's office the same week it was signed.
Whoever drafted it knew exactly what they were doing."
"It was signed under false pretenses.
He told me it was insurance paperwork."
"That's a fraud argument.
It's possible, but it's expensive and it's slow, and I have to be honest with you — the burden of proof is going to sit with you.
You'll need to demonstrate that you were deliberately misled, that you had no reasonable opportunity to seek independent counsel, and that the terms were unconscionable.
Given that you were not under financial duress at the time of signing, that last point is going to be difficult."
"So I have nothing."
A pause.
"You have the divorce.
The marriage is ending.
You leave with your personal assets, your car, your clothing, your personal accounts.
What you don't have is any claim on the business, the property, or the joint accounts, which were drawn down significantly in the eighteen months before you filed."
She went still.
"Drawn down how much?"
"The joint account that your lawyer — that I — identified as a primary marital asset had a balance of four hundred and twelve thousand dollars fourteen months ago.
Current balance is just over nine thousand."
"He moved the money."
"He moved the money legally, over a period of time, into accounts held solely in his name.
Which he was entitled to do.
The prenup gives him that right."
She pressed her hand flat against the steering wheel.
"You should have told me sooner," she said.
"You should have let me do due diligence before you filed," Clifford said, and his voice was not unkind, but it was not soft either.
"I told you to wait.
I told you twice."
She remembered.
She had told him she didn't need to wait.
She had told him the assets were obvious and the case was simple.
She ended the call.
Her phone showed three missed calls from a number she recognized.
Petra.
Her closest friend for eleven years.
The one who had told her, eighteen months ago, over dinner, that Daniel seemed like a man who was quietly preparing for something.
She had laughed at Petra then.
She had said Petra was being dramatic.
She called her back.
Petra answered on the second ring.
"I've been trying to reach you all morning."
"I know."
"Are you at his mother's house?"
"I'm outside it.
How did you know?"
"Because I know you." A breath.
"How bad is it?"
"There's a prenup.
There's a company I can't touch.
There's a letter he wrote me that I can't stop thinking about." She looked at the house through the windscreen.
The curtain in the front window had not moved.
"He knew, Petra.
He knew the whole time and he stayed anyway."
Silence on the line.
"I told you," Petra said finally.
Not cruelly.
Just quietly.
"I know you did."
"What are you going to do?"
She watched the front door of the house.
It didn't open.
The mother was not coming out to check on her.
She was simply leaving her there, in the car, to decide.
"I don't know yet," she said.
"Do you want me to come?"
She almost said no.
The word was already forming.
May you like
"Yes," she said instead.
"I think I do."
