Chapter 6 - LAUREN’S VERSION OF MY MARRIAGE
Claire told me not to contact Lauren directly.
I listened for approximately forty minutes.
Then Lauren called me.
Her name appeared because I had already saved the number from the loan file.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“Danielle?”
Her voice was low and professional.
Not the voice I had imagined belonging to the lipstick stain.
“Yes.”
“This is Lauren Voss.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Then, “Mitchell told me there’s been some confusion.”
I looked across Marissa’s living room.
“Did he tell you I found the fake driver’s license?”
A longer silence.
“He told me you’re upset.”
I almost admired the choice of word.
“Did you sleep with my husband?”
“Danielle, I don’t think this conversation is productive.”
“That means yes.”
“I’m not going to discuss personal matters.”
“You were discussing my occupancy status in an email.”
Her breathing changed.
“You need to speak with Mitchell.”
“No. You need to stop processing any document containing my name.”
“The loan has already been placed on hold.”
“Because I called the lender.”
“That’s correct.”
“You knew I hadn’t authorized it.”
“I’m not admitting that.”
“Then why did you write that I needed to be out of the property?”
She went quiet again.
I waited.
People reveal things when you stop rescuing them from silence.
Finally she said, “Mitchell told me you had agreed to a separation arrangement and were refusing to cooperate out of spite.”
I laughed once.
“Did he also tell you I agreed to let another woman impersonate me?”
“No.”
“Yet you accepted the ID.”
“I was not responsible for identity verification.”
“You uploaded the appraisal.”
Another silence.
This one was different.
Guarded.
“How do you know that?”
“I have the file.”
She exhaled.
“Listen to me carefully. I did not create that appraisal.”
“But you used it.”
“I received it from Mitchell.”
That surprised me.
“He gave it to you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“A week ago.”
“Where?”
“Danielle.”
“If you’re telling me you were deceived too, this is your chance.”
She sounded tired when she answered.
“His office.”
Mitchell worked from a corporate sales office near Ballantyne.
I wrote the date down.
“Were you having an affair with him then?”
She said nothing.
“Lauren.”
“Yes.”
The word was so small.
My marriage became past tense inside me before the call even ended.
“How long?”
“Four months.”
I stared at the wall.
Four months.
While Mitchell encouraged me to take fewer freelance projects because I was “burned out.”
While he told me we should postpone replacing my car because our finances were tight.
While he insisted Theresa stay with us because “family takes care of family.”
I swallowed.
“Why help him take money out of our house?”
“I thought he had your consent.”
“You just said he told you I was refusing to cooperate.”
“He said you had agreed to the financing, then changed your mind after the separation conversation.”
“So you helped him go around me.”
“No.”
“You have my fake ID in a closing file.”
Lauren’s voice hardened.
“I didn’t create it.”
“But you didn’t stop it.”
She didn’t answer.
I was about to hang up when she said, “There’s something Mitchell doesn’t know I kept.”
I waited.
“He asked me to delete our personal messages.”
“Did you?”
“Most of them.”
“Why keep anything?”
“Because once the lender asked questions about the appraisal, Mitchell started acting like every decision had been mine.”
That sounded like him.
“What did you keep?”
“A voicemail.”
“What does it say?”
“I’m not sending it without speaking to a lawyer.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Because your husband is not telling you why he needs two hundred forty thousand dollars.”
My pulse changed.
“He said Theresa is in financial trouble.”
Lauren laughed softly.
Not amused.
“That’s what he told you?”
“Yes.”
“Then ask him why Harbor Row Ventures made three payments to his employer last year.”
I sat forward.
“What payments?”
“I don’t know. The bank statements were in a file he gave me.”
“How much?”
“About ninety thousand total.”
I stopped writing.
“Why would Theresa’s company pay Mitchell’s employer?”
Lauren lowered her voice.
“That’s the question that made him tell me to delete everything.”
The call ended two minutes later.
I searched Harbor Row Ventures again.
The public filings told me nothing beyond what I already knew.
Then I remembered something.
Mitchell’s year-end company awards dinner.
Last December.
He had received a special recognition for “recovering a major client account.”
There had been applause.
Champagne.
His boss had joked that Mitchell had “saved everybody’s quarter.”
I had believed it.
Now I opened our old photos from that night.
In one picture, Theresa was standing behind us.
Beside her was a man I recognized from Mitchell’s company Christmas party.
Chief financial officer.
Arthur Bell.
His arm was around Theresa’s shoulder.
May you like
And Theresa was wearing the same expression she had worn when I found the blue folder.
The expression of someone who already knew the next move.
