My Husband’s Mistress Received a Gift With My Name on It
Chapter 9
THEME: FONT SIZE: 18pxAt first, Marcus thought those could be ordinary reimbursements.
Then he found matching dates.
"Look here," he said.
We were sitting around Lena's conference table on December thirtieth.
He rotated his laptop toward me.
"Forty thousand enters Preston's LLC from the line of credit in your name."
"Yes."
"Two days later, forty thousand goes from his LLC into a Whitmore Capital operating account."
"Why?"
"I can't tell from your records."
He scrolled.
"Six weeks later, there's another transfer. Twenty-five thousand."
I looked at Lena.
"Was he putting money into the family company?"
"Possibly," she said.
"Why hide that?"
Marcus leaned back.
"Because the question isn't just why money went in."
He tapped the screen.
"It's why it came back out."
He showed me the next line.
Three days after the forty-thousand-dollar transfer entered Whitmore Capital, thirty-eight thousand moved to another outside account.
The name was partially obscured.
Marcus had only the routing information included in the joint records.
I recognized the bank.
It was the same institution Preston used.
"What does that mean?"
"It could mean many things," Marcus said. "We don't speculate without records."
Lena nodded.
"But we have enough to ask questions."
I hated questions by then.
Questions were doors.
Every door in my marriage seemed to open into a room worse than the last.
The answer came from Richard Whitmore.
He called me that evening.
I had not spoken to my father-in-law since Christmas.
"Vivian."
"Richard."
"We need to meet."
"Does Preston know you're calling?"
"No."
That was enough to make me listen.
"Why?"
"Because Graham told me you found accounts in your name."
I closed my eyes briefly.
"I wish he hadn't."
"So do I."
His voice sounded older.
"There's something I need to show you."
I met him the next morning at Whitmore Capital.
The offices were nearly empty for the holiday week.
Richard waited in the conference room where I had attended Christmas charity meetings and company dinners for years.
He looked different without an audience.
Smaller.
Tired.
He pushed a folder toward me.
"I owe you an apology."
I didn't touch it.
"Everyone in your family seems to have discovered apologies this week."
His face tightened.
"That's deserved."
"You knew about Sloane."
"Yes."
"And you let her sit in my home."
"Yes."
"Why?"
He looked down.
"Because Eleanor believed confronting Preston publicly would make things worse."
I laughed.
"She was opening my Christmas gift in front of twenty people."
"I know."
"Your family wasn't preventing a public confrontation, Richard. You were making sure only one person was allowed to be humiliated."
He didn't defend himself.
That was the only decent thing he did.
Finally he said, "I was a coward."
The simplicity of it stopped me.
No excuse.
No complicated family philosophy.
Just cowardice.
He pushed the folder closer.
"This does not excuse it."
"What is that?"
"Internal account irregularities."
My stomach tightened.
"Connected to Preston?"
"Yes."
I opened the folder.
The documents were difficult to understand at first.
Transfers.
Expense classifications.
Internal authorizations.
I found Preston's name repeatedly.
"What did he do?"
Richard rubbed a hand over his face.
"He concealed investment losses."
"I know that."
His eyes lifted sharply.
"How much do you know?"
"Enough."
"No. You know the personal side."
The room seemed colder.
"What other side is there?"
He pointed to one page.
"Eighteen months ago, Preston began advocating for several private investments through a strategy group he'd created. I rejected two of them for the firm."
"P.W. Strategic Holdings."
Richard stared at me.
"You know about it."
"Debt opened in my name funded it."
He went pale.
Actually pale.
He had not known.
"How much?"
"At least several hundred thousand."
"Good God."
"Keep going."
Richard stood and walked toward the window.
"Preston believed I was too conservative. We argued about it. I thought he'd dropped the idea."
"He didn't."
"No."
Richard turned.
"Some of his personal investments failed."
"I know."
"When he needed liquidity, he began moving his own funds through temporary firm accounts."
"Why?"
"To hide losses from lenders. To create the appearance of cash flow. At least that's what our preliminary review suggests."
"So the money he stole in my name went into your company."
"Briefly."
"And then out again."
"Yes."
"To make his company look healthier than it was?"
"In part."
I sat very still.
"And you didn't notice?"
"Not immediately."
"That doesn't inspire confidence."
"No."
Again, he accepted it.
"Our internal controls should have caught it sooner."
"Did he steal client money?"
Richard hesitated.
That hesitation frightened me more than yes would have.
"We're still determining whether any client funds were directly misappropriated."
"That isn't an answer."
"No. We have not found evidence that he took client principal for personal spending."
I breathed again.
May you like
"But?"
"He used internal accounts in ways he had no authority to use. He falsified the purpose of several transfers. Some client-related accounts may have temporarily masked his movements."
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