Family Money(24)

Tiring, I grabbed one of the boxes near the bottom of the stack and yanked off the lid. It was pretty much the same as with all the others. Manila folders with mind-numbing legal paperwork. But there were different attorney names listed: Bruce Gibson and Daniel Gibson, Attorneys-at-Law. I started pulling files out and quickly skimmed them. Joe’s name was not mentioned anywhere. I wondered why Joe had a box with someone else’s files. I pulled out another box and found that it also belonged to the same attorneys. Inside one folder, I didn’t find any legal paperwork; instead, I found a standard white mailing envelope with Joe’s name and an address in Vancouver handwritten on the outside. I knew Vancouver was where Joe and Carol had met and gotten married before they’d decided to move to Texas when my mother-in-law was pregnant with Taylor. There was no return address written on the envelope.

Opening it, I discovered a letter inside along with a small color photograph of a very attractive young blonde woman wearing a red dress and sitting on a park bench with what looked like the Washington Monument behind her. I flipped the photograph over. Nothing was written on the back. I unfolded the letter. A date scribbled at the top indicated it was written nearly thirty-four years ago. However, even though the envelope had Joe’s name on it, the letter was actually addressed to Daniel. I presumed it was the same Daniel from Bruce Gibson and Daniel Gibson, Attorneys-at-Law.

Daniel,

These past few weeks have been the hardest of my life. I miss you like crazy. I can’t believe this is the path we’ve been forced to take. But like we’ve always said, c’est la vie. Life really isn’t fair sometimes. I know we are supposed to cut things completely off between us, but everything felt so rushed there at the end. Please know you’ll forever have a special place in my heart. I will always consider you my husband. I can only pray that life will show us mercy and one day allow us to be together again.

Love, Greta

I stared at the name at the bottom. Greta? I immediately thought about the strange text messages that had arrived on Joe’s phone the past couple of days. Could this be the same person? It seemed likely. Greta was not a common name. The photograph showed her to be in DC, which was the location where the other Greta had texted my father-in-law. I again wondered about Joe’s recent trip to attend the DC legal conference. What was the name of the conference again? I remembered my father-in-law saying something to Carol while we were all out to dinner together. The conference had to do with nonprofit organizations. Joe did a lot of pro bono work for local nonprofits.

On my phone, I began to search for DC legal conferences involving nonprofits. I scanned the search results until I found the exact name he’d mentioned at dinner the other night: Washington Nonprofit Legal & Tax Conference. I clicked on the link, brought up the conference’s home page, and then cursed out loud. The conference wasn’t scheduled until this coming October—three months from now. Joe had lied about it.

I looked at the photograph of the attractive young woman again.

So why had he really gone to DC ten days ago?





FIFTEEN


I drove home feeling completely stressed. Where the hell had Joe gotten the money he’d invested in my company? Was it connected to his death? Were the two strange men I’d run into over the past few days also looking for it? My chest started tightening at the thought of how everything Taylor and I had built together these past three years—the new house, the pool, the nice cars, the private schools, the trips, our entire future—might somehow be connected to something dangerous.

When I got home, the girls were in the backyard on the swing set. Carol was taking turns pushing both of them. Nicole was my little daredevil. She kept yelling for Nanny to push her higher and higher. Her older sister was much more reserved. I could see that Olivia had her fingers fiercely gripped on the chains with a concerned look on her face. But she would never admit to being scared. I noticed a slight smile on my mother-in-law’s face as my girls squealed with glee. Then I thought about what I’d discovered about Joe’s trip to DC and felt knots in my stomach. Did my mother-in-law suspect anything? I also pondered why Carol had been kept so out of the loop when it came to their financial situation. Could Joe have intentionally kept his wife at a distance with their money because there was something more to it?

Taylor and I had never operated that way. Every part of our home and work lives were wrapped up together. Taylor paid most of our personal bills and knew every dollar in each of our bank accounts. There was nothing hidden between us when it came to our money. It was only after we’d had kids that my income became our sole income. She’d had a rock-star marketing career going when she became pregnant with Olivia. The initial plan had been for her to take a brief work break when Olivia was young and then get back out there. She enjoyed what she did. But then she got pregnant right away with Nicole. The brief break turned into something much more extended. With both girls now in school full-time, we had been talking about her doing some consultant work. We didn’t need the money—far from it. But Taylor mentioned she wanted to put some of her energy into more than just our home and the girls.

I found Taylor folding clothes in the laundry room. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I didn’t want her to see the stress I was feeling right now.

“Want some help?” I offered.

“Always.”

I moved in beside her in front of a stainless-steel laundry table, grabbed a few of the girls’ shirts, and began folding. I could never keep straight which clothes belonged to Olivia or Nicole. They were close to the same size.