Chapter 5 - Uncovering the Paper Trail
Diane’s jaw went slack, her finger frozen in mid-air as she looked at my face and realized I wasn’t bluffing.
She snatched her hands back against her chest, clutching the lapels of the robe as if defending her virtue.
“Ethan!” Diane cried, her voice shifting instantly from furious authority to pitiful victimhood.
“Are you going to let her stand there and threaten your own mother with physical violence under your roof?!”
Ethan stepped between us, holding his hands up like a referee trying to stop a heavyweight bout.
“Laura, stop! Just stop it right now!” Ethan yelled, his voice trembling with frustration.
“You are acting completely unreasonable! Mom is an elderly woman, she has chronic joint issues, and she deserves respect!”
“Respect is earned through honorable conduct, Ethan,” I replied smoothly, pulling my smartphone out of my pocket.
“Not by stealing forty-seven thousand dollars from your deployed spouse while she’s dodging rocket fire in an active combat zone.”
The entire living room went completely silent.
The color drained out of Ethan’s face so fast he looked like a walking corpse.
Megan stopped her whining at the top of the stairs, her eyes darting between her brother and me.
Diane’s eyes blinked rapidly behind her thick lenses.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ethan stammered, his eyes darting toward the front door.
“That was... that was joint money. We agreed that I would manage the household finances while you were deployed.”
“Manage finances?” I held up the phone screen, displaying the high-resolution PDF bank statement I had generated forty minutes earlier.
“Is an eighteen-hundred-dollar cosmetic dental procedure for Diane considered a household utility, Ethan?”
“Or how about a twelve-thousand-dollar Caribbean cruise for you, your mother, and your sister while I was living off MREs and bottled water?”
Diane cleared her throat, trying to regain her regal posture.
“That cruise was a necessary family healing retreat after my sister passed away,” Diane proclaimed defensively.
“Ethan was being a dutiful son, and as his legal wife, your financial duty is to support his filial obligations!”
“My financial duty is to the United States Army and my own legal estate,” I said, scrolling to the next document on my phone.
“And speaking of duty, Diane, let’s talk about your lovely little townhouse on Elmwood Avenue.”
Diane’s eyes flared with sudden panic.
“How do you know about Elmwood?” Diane demanded.
“Public property records are remarkably easy to search when you have military intelligence access and a high-speed internet connection,” I replied with a cold grin.
“You’ve been collecting sixteen hundred and fifty dollars a month from two graduate students named Sarah Jenkins and Rebecca Vance since October of last year.”
“You deposited every single one of those checks into a personal off-ledger savings account in your maiden name at First National Bank.”
“Meanwhile, you lived here rent-free, ate my groceries, drove a leased Lexus paid for out of my joint savings, and drafted a laminated list demanding nine hundred dollars from me.”
Megan let out a nervous squeak from the stairs.
“Mom... you said Laura’s deployment bonus was paying for my cosmetology tuition fair and square,” Megan whispered, her voice cracking with sudden realization.
“Shut your mouth, Megan!” Diane snapped viciously, dropping her sweet motherly persona in a heartbeat.
“I don’t have to explain my private financial affairs to anyone in this house!” Diane turned back to me, her teeth bared in an ugly grimace.
“Ethan gave me permission! Ethan is my son, and he manages this home!”
“Ethan committed grand larceny and marital fraud,” I said calmly, looking straight into my husband’s terrified, watering eyes.
“And at zero-eight-hundred hours this morning, Captain Marcus Vance from the Staff Judge Advocate’s office filed a formal petition with the district court.”
“The joint account has been frozen by federal order under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.”
“Your credit cards tied to that account have been terminated.”
“And the Lexus lease payment scheduled for Monday morning has been officially rejected for fraudulent signatory authorization.”
Ethan dropped onto the couch, burying his head in his trembling hands, letting out a pitiful, dry sob.
“Laura... please... you’re destroying us,” Ethan choked out.
May you like
“No, Ethan,” I said, turning my back on him and walking toward the kitchen to brew myself a fresh cup of black coffee.
“You destroyed yourself the second you mistook my service for weakness.”
