Chapter two

"Hello, Ms. Varga? This is Tamsin Orrey."

"Ms. Orrey. What can I do for you?"

"I need to file for divorce. Today, if possible."

"Today? Even an uncontested petition takes time..."

"It won't be uncontested. But it will be solid." My voice was steadier than I expected. "My husband, Caspian Rook, has been having an affair with my best friend for over a year. And he's been planning to cheat me out of twenty million dollars, my grandmother's entire inheritance, for a company that doesn't exist. I have the emails, the accounts, and a charter confirmation with her name on it instead of mine."

A pause. Then the sound of a pen clicking. "Bring everything. I'll clear my morning."

"Thank you. And Ms. Varga? He doesn't know. I'd like it to stay that way until tonight."

"Understood."

By noon, the petition was filed. By afternoon, my phone was ringing.

"Where are you?" Caspian sounded rushed, not suspicious. 

"Mother's birthday dinner starts soon. Everyone is asking about you. Hurry up, Tam."

"I'll be there."

"And wear something loose, you've been gaining more weight lately and I don't want people staring."

"Of course."

"Good girl. Don't embarrass me."

He hung up.

I looked at the leather folder on my desk. Shell company accounts. Offshore transfers. A file from his laptop named Tamsin, after. And a charter confirmation with four names, none of them mine.

"Wear something loose," I repeated softly. "Of course."

I wore black.

I arrived late, on purpose. The ballroom was already blazing with chandelier light, every glass raised. Caspian sat at the head table, laughing. His mother sat beside him. And on his other side, in a pale green gown, sat my best friend, who had promised me lemon cake tonight.

Around her throat hung a string of pearls.

My grandmother's pearls.

My knees almost buckled. For a second I was back on the concrete with my fingers crushed under her shoe. But the pain didn't leave me weak this time. It lined up in me like iron filings under a magnet, sharp and pointed in one direction.

"Tamsin!" Mrs. Rook's voice cut across the room. Her smile was lacquered. "How nice that you could make it. You've put on a little weight, haven't you, dear? We keep telling you about the sweets."

A few guests tittered politely. Odalys raised her glass to hide a smile.

The old me would have shrunk. The old me had a name, and it was Grateful.

"Mrs. Rook," I said pleasantly. "Happy birthday. I brought a gift."

I walked to the head table, opened the folder, and laid out the first document where everyone could see it.

"Divorce petition," I said. "Filed this morning. Served in person, which is why I'm here."

The room went very still.

Caspian laughed. A beautiful, easy laugh. "Babe, you're being dramatic. We talked about this."

"No. You threatened me about this. At seven in the morning, by text, because I wouldn't hand you twenty million dollars." I turned to the guests. "That's my grandmother's money. The inheritance she left me when she died. Caspian wanted it for what he calls his business investment."

"It's an opportunity," Caspian said through his teeth. "Rook Meridian is about to..."

"Rook Meridian is a shell." I set down a second document. "Mr. Hale, you invested two million last spring, didn't you? Your returns were paid on schedule. Would you like to know where the payments came from?"

A silver-haired man near the front went rigid. "What are you saying?"

"They came from the next investor's money. And the next. I'm the one who balanced those books, because I'm his wife. I stopped balancing them this morning, when I realized what I was looking at." I slid a page across the table toward Mr. Hale. "Every dollar in. Every dollar out. The only real asset in this company was the twenty million he planned to take from me, and use to cover everyone else."

Gasps rose around the ballroom like startled birds.

"That's a lie," Caspian said. "She's unstable..."

"Play the saved recording from our kitchen speaker," I said calmly. "Last Tuesday."

Caspian turned gray.

Our smart speaker sat on the counter at home. It listens. It keeps logs. He had forgotten it, the way he forgot everything he had not personally paid for.

The voice that came out of my phone was crisp. Easy.

Caspian: "Once her money lands, we cover the Hale payments and the rest goes offshore. Then I divorce her. 

She'll cry, but she'll sign. Fat girls always do."

Odalys, laughing: "You're evil. But I do love that necklace on me. Tell your mother we want the plane booked before she finds out."

Caspian: "Don't worry. She'll be too busy being grateful."

The recording ended.

Nobody moved. Even the waiters had frozen.

Mr. Hale stood, slow and white with rage. "Rook. You embezzled from me."

"I'll fix it! I can explain!"

"You can explain to the police." A woman in the second row already had her phone against her ear. "I'd like to report a fraud."

I turned to Odalys. She hadn't moved. The pearls shone at her throat, perfectly lit.

"Take them off," I said.

"Tam, you don't understand, he gave them to me..."

"He took them from my jewelry box. Last month, I cleaned them.' Take them off."

"I won't be spoken to like..."

I reached across and unclasped them myself.

She shrieked. Someone grabbed my arm. Mrs. Rook swung her wine glass at my face, shouting that I was a gold-digging parasite, but I stepped back, and the red wine splashed across her own silk gown instead.

"Call me when you're hungry," I told Odalys, quietly, and slid the pearls into my pocket.

Her face went white to the lips. I think some part of her recognized the sentence before her mind did.

Caspian lunged for me. Two men from the Hale party hauled him back. He was sobbing now, loud and uncontrolled, begging his mother to say something, begging Odalys, begging the room.

"Sign," I said, pulling out the last page. "Settlement. No claim on my inheritance. No claim on my name. Sign it now, in front of everyone, and I'll tell the police you cooperated."

"Tam, please..."

"You said fat girls always sign. Show me how it's done."

His hand shook as he took the pen. His signature wobbled across the line.

By noon the next day, with a witness list of forty, a notary friend of my lawyer, and a judge who owed her a favor, the paperwork was stamped. A certificate in my bag. A case closed.

I stood on the courthouse steps in thin gray sunlight, holding it.

Divorced.

My lawyer, a sharp woman named Ines Varga, caught up with me as I started down.

"Ms. Orrey. One more thing. We pulled records on your husband's accounts." She hesitated. "A life insurance policy on you, taken out five weeks ago. Five million. Sole beneficiary, Caspian Rook. It carries your signature."

The wind seemed to stop.

"I never signed anything," I said.

"I know," Ines said quietly. "That's why I'm worried. People who forge a policy usually have a plan to collect it."

Across the street, a black sedan idled at the curb. A man sat in the driver's seat, wearing a cap pulled low. He lowered his phone. He was looking directly at me.

Uncle Barrett.

He smiled, and drew one finger slowly across his throat.