Chapter 5: What Grant Built While I Was Gone
My colleague Dana Reyes had a two-bedroom apartment on the east side of Denver and a habit of keeping the kitchen stocked like she was expecting a small emergency at any moment.
She met us at the door with soup already on the stove and a folded blanket under her arm.
She took one look at Lily and didn't ask a single question.
"Bedroom's ready," she said.
"Bathroom has a night light."
Lily ate half a bowl of soup and fell asleep before eight o'clock, still wearing her dirty pajamas because she refused to let me take them off.
I sat on the edge of the bed until her breathing steadied, then I went to the kitchen and sat across from Dana and told her everything.
Dana listened without interrupting.
That was one of the things that made her good at her job.
When I finished, she poured two cups of coffee and pushed one toward me.
"The text," she said.
"Already forwarded to Reyes."
"Good.
Unknown number means it was deliberate.
Someone wanted you scared but untraceable." She wrapped both hands around her mug.
"How long has Grant known Vanessa?"
"I don't know.
She said October.
The filing was six weeks ago."
"So he had a lawyer before he had a conversation with you."
"Yes."
Dana was quiet for a moment.
"Pull his financials."
I looked at her.
"I'm serious," she said.
"You're a federal agent, Evelyn.
You know what a man who's been planning something for months looks like.
Pull his financials.
Not officially — ask Marcus.
He owes you from the Winnipeg case."
I thought about the folder on the counter.
The date on the petition.
The satisfied smile when Grant told me I should get a lawyer.
"He's been planning this longer than six weeks," I said.
"That's what I think too."
I called Marcus at nine-thirty.
He picked up on the second ring, and when I explained what I needed, he didn't ask for a reason.
"Give me until morning," he said.
I sat at Dana's kitchen table until midnight, reading through everything I could access through legitimate channels.
Grant Carlisle, senior partner at a mid-size Denver investment firm.
Clean record.
Good reputation.
The kind of man who coached youth soccer on Saturdays and remembered the names of his colleagues' children.
The kind of man no one would believe had done what he had done.
At twelve-seventeen, an email arrived from Marcus.
No subject line.
Just an attachment.
I opened it.
Grant had transferred forty thousand dollars from our joint savings account in September — two weeks before Vanessa said she moved in, a full month before the legal filing.
The transfer went to a private account I had never seen.
The account had been opened in August.
He had started moving money before he filed.
Before he told me anything.
Before he made a single phone call.
I scrolled further.
Another transfer in October.
Fifteen thousand.
Then a payment in November to a firm I didn't recognize — Holt & Carver Associates.
I typed the name into a search window.
Private investigators.
Grant had hired a private investigator.
I sat with that for a moment.
He had hired someone to build a case against me.
While I was undercover.
While I was sleeping in trucks and eating protein bars and thinking about pink cupcakes and little yellow dresses.
My phone buzzed.
Dana, from the other room.
*You should sleep.*
I typed back: *Look at this first.*
She came out in thirty seconds, read over my shoulder, and said nothing for a long moment.
"He was building a file on you," she said.
"Yes."
"To use in the custody case."
"Yes."
She straightened up.
"Then we build a better one."
I looked at the screen.
At the name of the private investigation firm.
At the transfer dates.
At the careful, methodical way Grant Carlisle had spent months constructing a trap while his daughter was alone in a house with a woman who stepped on her hand for spilling a drink.
"Dana," I said.
"Yeah."
"I need to know who Vanessa Vale actually is."
May you like
Dana picked up her own phone.
"Already on it," she said.
