“That was our attorneys.”
Daniel blinked.
“Then why are you here?”
Sabrina’s expression changed.
For the first time, she looked nervous.
“Because the money isn’t the biggest problem.”
Nobody moved.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Sabrina looked at me.
“When we audited Daniel’s transactions, we found payments.”
“What kind of payments?”
“To accounts that don’t belong to him.”
Daniel became very still.
Vanessa noticed.
“Daniel?”
Sabrina continued.
“Regular transfers. Small enough initially to avoid attention. Then larger.”
“How large?”
“Altogether?”
She paused.
“Over nine hundred thousand dollars.”
Vanessa actually stepped backward.
I gripped the edge of the stroller.
“From Mason Ridge?”
“Some.”
“Where did the rest come from?”
Sabrina looked at Daniel.
He said nothing.
“Corporate accounts,” she answered.
Vanessa’s mouth fell open.
“Langford?”
“Yes.”
Daniel suddenly moved.
Not toward the door.
Toward Sabrina.
He reached for her phone.
She pulled it back.
“Don’t.”
“Give me that.”
“No.”
He grabbed her wrist.
The movement was fast enough that Vanessa gasped.
I immediately stepped between them.
“Daniel.”
He released Sabrina.
For one second, I saw something in his face I had never seen during eleven years of marriage.
Not anger.
Panic.
Pure, unfiltered panic.
His entire constructed life was collapsing.
And he had no script left.
Sabrina rubbed her wrist.
“I already copied everything.”
Daniel stared at her.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a warning.”
“To whom?”
He didn’t answer.
Then one of the babies began crying again.
Noah.
I turned automatically.
When I bent over the stroller, something slipped from beneath Noah’s blanket and fell onto the floor.
A white envelope.
I stared at it.
I hadn’t put it there.
My name was written across the front.
HELEN.
Daniel saw it.
