Chapter 3 - Opening Pandora's LaptopThat evening, after I had finally tucked Hazel into bed with an extra bedtime story and whispered soft reassurances to the little boy kicking actively inside my belly, I sat down at the kitchen table and opened my laptop.
The screen glowed brightly in the quiet kitchen. A shadow fell across the table as Calder hovered nervously behind me.
“Maeve, I need you to understand—”
“Give me the master password,” I interrupted, my voice devoid of emotion.
He hesitated, blinking in confusion. “What?”
“The administrative password for our joint credit union account, Calder. If you are hiding anything else from me—any other secrets, loans, or hidden balances—I would rather discover them right now on a computer screen than hear another lie from your mother.”
He swallowed hard, reading the absolute steel in my expression. Slowly, reluctantly, he leaned over my shoulder and typed in the complex alphanumeric sequence.
I immediately navigated to our loan and checking history.
The twenty-six-thousand-dollar home equity withdrawal was right there, stark and undeniable. The electronic transfer to Mercer Events LLC stared back at me.
But as I scrolled further down the ledger, my blood ran cold. That wasn't the end of the bleeding.
Over the preceding six weeks, three additional, unauthorized electronic transfers had been siphoned directly out of our primary checking account: $850. $1,200. $675.
Every single one of those payments had been routed to a familiar personal checking account. Corrine’s account.
I spun around in my chair, staring up at my husband in sheer disbelief. “What are these transfers, Calder?”
Calder closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Mom said she'd been dealing with unexpected dental and home repair bills.”
A harsh, humorless laugh escaped my lips. There was nothing remotely funny about this nightmare, but the sheer absurdity of my reality was staggering. Our toddler daughter was currently wearing secondhand winter boots with worn-out soles. I had stopped buying my prescribed prenatal vitamins at the local pharmacy weeks ago, switching to the cheapest, generic supermarket equivalent I could find to save a few dollars. We had spent hours discussing whether we should sell our dining room table online just to cover our grocery bills.
Meanwhile, my husband had been moonlighting as an ATM for his mother, secretly draining our accounts behind my back.
“How much have you given her this year?” I demanded.
He hesitated, staring fixedly at the linoleum floor. “About... five thousand dollars.”
I sat completely still, the air evaporating from my lungs. “Is that total including the home equity loan?”
“No.”
With trembling fingers, I closed the laptop lid with a definitive snap. “I can't deal with any more of this tonight. Just... leave me alone.”
“Maeve, please, let me explain—”
“I am seven months pregnant, Calder. Our two-year-old daughter is sleeping upstairs, and I have just discovered that my husband and his mother conspired to forge my signature on a massive property loan while funneling thousands behind my back. Sleep in the guest bedroom.”
He stared at me, unshed tears shimmering in his eyes. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you did.”
He turned slowly and walked down the hallway without another word.
At precisely midnight, as I sat alone in the dark kitchen listening to the rhythmic hum of the refrigerator, my phone buzzed violently against the tabletop.
It was a text message from Micah Mercer—Sloane’s husband.
Micah and I weren't particularly close, but he was a quiet, decent man who had always been wonderfully kind to Hazel. His message contained only two sentences, but they detonated like a hand grenade in my mind:
Maeve, I'm sorry about what happened today at your house. But you really need to look into what actually happened to the money after Sloane received it.
A second later, another text popped up:
She didn't keep the entire $26,800.
I stared at the screen, my pulse hammering in my ears. Before I could even type a reply, Micah sent a high-resolution screenshot.
It was an internal ledger export from Sloane's corporate business account. A timestamped transfer of $17,800.
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And the designated recipient listed at the bottom?
Corrine Donnelly.
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