The Marriage Lie(68)

I clench my teeth, turn off the ringer and chuck the phone into the cutlery drawer.

Once, when Will and I were still dating, he stood me up. There I was in high heels and a slinky black dress at the Rathbun bar, tipsy on lemon-drop martinis and new love, and he forgot we had a date. By then I knew he was a workaholic, and I figured he’d gotten sucked into designing software and lost all track of the time. Six-thirty turned into seven and seven turned into eight. My worry turned into irritation turned into anger. Finally, I slapped two twenties onto the bar and called a cab, firing off a snarky text on the way home. It was a shame he wasn’t there for the date, I told him, because it was our last.

He must have checked his phone at somewhere around eleven, because that’s when he started blowing up my phone. He apologized. He begged my forgiveness. He suggested we both ditch work the next day so he could make it up to me. He promised to be thorough. I didn’t respond to a single message.

But his obvious fluster and steady perseverance got to me, and by midnight I cracked. I texted him that I was going to bed, and we’d talk about it tomorrow.

When he showed up at my door fifteen minutes later, still frantic with worry, I let him in. I tried to stay mad, I really did, but I was soothed by his familiar body against mine, by the thump of his pulse in his neck, by the way his lips were soft but his arms strong as they steered me down the hallway into the bedroom. When the alarm buzzed on my nightstand the next morning, Will and I were still busy, and neither one of us was thinking about work.

But forgetting a date is not the same as choosing money over me, and it’s not in the same stratosphere as breaking your wife’s heart by faking your death. This time, I will not be soothed.

I leave my cell where it is, tangled in a dark drawer with the forks and knives and spoons, and fetch my laptop from the table. I need to back up, concentrate on the facts and start at the very beginning. Four and a half million isn’t exactly petty cash. You can’t just swipe it from the company account without somebody noticing. Maybe if I figure out how he took it, I’ll find a clue as to where it is.

I carry my computer over to the couch and type “corporate embezzlement schemes” into the Google search field. A California CFO pocketed almost ninety million. The head of a Chicago meat processing plant ran off with over seventy million. A VP of a West Coast merchandising company stole sixty-five million dollars via a kickback scheme, then gambled all of it away. Closer to home, a Savannah employee benefits manager made off with more than forty million in fraudulent wire transfers.

And then my gaze falls on a story at the bottom of the page, and my heart rate spikes. With shaking fingers, I click on the link, which shoots me to a website profiling the nation’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

In the mid-’90s, a man by the name of Javier Cardozo was accused of stealing over seventy-three million from his employer, a Boston mortgage bank. When the police arrived at his house to arrest him, they busted in his door to find the television on and a half-eaten plate of still warm macaroni on the kitchen counter, but no Javier. Both he and the money, every single cent of the seventy-three million, had vanished.

In a year or two, will Will’s name be added to this list?

I return to the embezzlement schemes and scroll through the links. From them, I learn two things. First, four and a half million is chump change. I’m sure Nick and the AppSec board think otherwise, but the amount is little league compared to the others I come across.

Second, the money is almost always taken by someone with direct access to the books. A corporate officer, a head of finance, someone who handles billing or payroll. Will was a software engineer. His programming skills may have brought in business for AppSec, but how could he get money out? There had to have been someone else involved. Someone higher up within the company, someone who either paved Will’s way or covered his tracks.

Which brings me back to Nick. He didn’t mention investigating any other employees, but then again, he was being purposefully vague, and technically, he did threaten me. He also said his job was on the line, so it’s not a long stretch to think he might be desperate. I sigh and sink back into the couch, pushing my computer aside and picking up Dad’s legal pad. I flip to a clean page and jot down what I know:

          Money is missing from AppSec. Four and a half million dollars and counting.

     Nick thinks Will is the one who took it, and if I’m totally honest, so do I.

     Will would have had to move funds from AppSec’s account to one he controlled, and in multiple transfers spanning many months, if not years.

     The money is not in the house, but a clue to where Will hid it might be.

     Nick wants the money back. So does whoever is on the other end of the 678 number, and he’s willing to kill for it. Same person?



My heart gives a hard kick at the last one, and blood pulses in my head. Whoever it is hasn’t texted again, but it’s only a matter of time. You don’t send a threat that specific—Tell me where Will hid the money or you’ll be joining him—and then just fade away into silence. And if I’m to believe him, which I think I should, he knows how to get around an alarm.

The growl of a lawn mower roars outside. A dog starts up across the street. Both spike my pulse, and I retrace my steps after my parents left, when I locked the doors and punched in the code on my gleaming keypad to arm the system. I tell myself I’m fine. I’m tucked safely behind the best alarm money can buy.