The Marriage Lie(56)

“Just so you know, Mom thinks you’ve fallen into the Chattahoochee. Wait, what are you doing at the mall? I thought you were meeting Will’s boss.”

“I was.” I drop the phone in my cup holder, leaning back into the seat and giving Dave a quick but thorough blow-by-blow of my conversation with Nick. The missing money, Nick’s notice of the ring, the way he waited for the words I couldn’t choke out: My husband didn’t do it. He’s innocent. “They’ve lawyered up, Dave. Nick said he’d take Will down if he had to, but he was going after that money.”

“Of course he is. Nobody just lets somebody run off with four and a half million dollars. Which means you need to be lawyering up, too. You need to make sure none of this blows back on you.”

My spine straightens against the leather upholstery. “Blow back how? I didn’t steal a penny.” As I say the words, Nick’s warning slides through my mind. He told me he’d take me down, too, in order to recover the money, and a chill skates across my skin.

“Maybe not, but if Will used stolen money to buy things you shared—cars, furniture, vacations, those kinds of things—as his wife you could be held accountable. They could come after you, too.”

I unfold my right hand from the steering wheel, the Cartier blinking on my finger. “Will paid cash for the ring.”

A pointed silence fills my car.

I drop my forehead to the steering wheel, give it a few thumps. “How did this happen? How did I go from happily married to a widow wearing hocked jewels in just a week?”

“Now is not the time to be feeling sorry for yourself, Iris. Now is the time to find and retain the best lawyer in town.”

My thoughts zip to Evan Sheffield, the seven-foot attorney I met at the memorial, the one who lost his wife and baby daughter in the crash. I think of him and his shoulders heavy with burden, and the feelings come flooding back. The shock. The fury. The grief. I imagine myself sitting across from him, looking into his sad eyes as I tell him about the missing four and a half million, and the idea makes me dizzy with dread.

“I’ll make some calls today,” I say, lifting my head to find a valet standing in front of my car, watching me with concern. I give him a weak smile to let him know I’m all right, and he jogs off. “In the meantime, do me a favor, will you? Don’t tell Mom and Dad about this, okay? Dad already threatened to pay for the alarm system, and I don’t want them to worry any more than they already are.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Dave says, right as a text pings my phone. “You can’t...”

Dave’s still talking, but I’m no longer listening. I’m staring at a text from the 678 phone: Hello, Iris. How did you get this number?

My stomach flips upside down. With shaking fingers, I type my answer. How do you know my name? Who is this?

A bubble appears under my message, indicating the other person is typing. I hold my breath and wait for the answer.

“Hellooo,” Dave says over the car speakers. “Iris, are you still there?”

I mash the button on my steering wheel to end the call, my gaze never leaving the phone. A few seconds later, a text lights up my screen. There was only one other person who knew this number, and he’s dead. Do you have what he took from me?

Nausea rises in my throat. Whoever is on the other end is referring to the money. A partner?

ME: I’m not answering any questions until you tell me who you are.

678-555-8214: This isn’t a negotiation. I want my money.

ME: What money?

678-555-8214: Tell me where Will hid the money or you’ll be joining him.

I take the long way home, winding down Lenox Road in a daze, my phone on the passenger-side floor, where I flung it like a hot potato. I barely notice when the stately condos and perfectly manicured lawns give way to a seedier strip, dark-windowed lingerie shops and gentlemen’s clubs of Cheshire Bridge. I putter past in the slow lane, stuck behind slow-moving out-of-towners and Marta buses making frequent stops, fingers gripping the wheel hard enough to snap it in two.

I’ve never been at the receiving end of a death threat before. Even though it was delivered in the most impersonal way possible, via text and from who knows how many miles away, the words still hit me like an icy fist in my gut.

Tell me where Will hid the money or you’ll be joining him.

At a light, I lean over the middle console and check my cell. Still dark and silent, thank God. Whoever the person is on the other end of that 678, I don’t doubt for a second that their threat was serious. This person knows Will, knows about the four and a half million, and thinks I know where Will put it. People have killed for a whole lot less.

Two questions enter my mind at once. First: How did the sender know it was me? This person must have already had my cell phone number, but how? Second: If the number wasn’t Will’s, why would he have given it to Natashya? Why list it on the receipt of something bought with stolen money?

The car behind me beeps, and I look up to see the light has turned green. I leave my phone on the floorboard and hit the gas, falling into line behind a white SUV.

And then another thought makes my hands wrap tighter around the wheel. Could the blocked number and the 678 number be owned by the same person?

I roll that one around in my mind, poking and prodding for holes. The Best Buy geek said the Seattle texts, the ones that showed up as a blocked number on my phone, were sent from a messaging app and therefore couldn’t be traced. What if the 678 phone has the messaging app on it? It’s entirely possible they originated from the same cell phone.