Chapter 11
Bradley’s reflection stayed by the window after the real man turned away from it. I kept my hand around Connor’s until his grip loosened, then let him decide whether to keep holding on.
“Can we go back to the room?” he asked. His voice was tired, not angry. “I want to go home. I hate having to figure out which one of you is lying.”
Madison folded her maze along its old creases. “I want my bed,” she said. “The one at home.”
“I hear you,” I said. I didn’t tell them London was worth it, or that they’d understand someday. “We can go upstairs. We don’t have to solve anything right now.”
Connor glanced at me. “Are we going home?”
“We’re coming back on the flight we planned,” I said. “I haven’t changed that. I still don’t know what home will look like after we land.”
He looked away, and I felt how little comfort an honest answer offered him. Still, I had given him enough answers that sounded soothing and left him carrying the consequences.
“I need to tell you something,” I said. “I wanted this trip partly because I needed to get away from your dad’s control. I wanted a few days where his voice didn’t decide what I did next.”
Connor’s shoulders drew tight.
“That wasn’t the only reason I brought you,” I said. “But I planned around what I needed and didn’t ask enough about what you needed. I’m sorry for that. I didn’t bring you here to punish him.”
“Then why didn’t you say that before?”
“Because I was afraid you’d think I was making you choose sides.” The words tasted like an excuse even though they were true. “I should have trusted you with the truth sooner.”
He didn’t reassure me. He didn’t say it was okay. He only nodded once, as if he needed to set my answer somewhere and see whether it held.
Madison tucked her maze into her backpack. “Can we have dinner in the room?”
“Yes,” I said. “You can pick.”
That seemed to be enough for the moment. We went upstairs together, leaving Bradley and the rain-blurred window behind us.
An hour later, a knock sounded at our door. Connor looked up from the takeout cartons. Madison stopped drawing, her marker held above the paper.
I checked the peephole.
Brittany stood in the hall with a canvas bag clutched against her side. Her hair was damp, her face pale beneath the makeup she had put on carefully and then forgotten to maintain.
I opened the door only as far as the chain allowed.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.” Brittany’s gaze slipped past me toward the children. “Not about Bradley. About the photograph.”
My fingers tightened on the door.
“Did you take it?”
“Yes.”
The word came too quickly, as though she had practiced it all the way across town.
I shut the door, removed the chain, and stepped into the hall, leaving it open behind me. “You took a picture of my children without asking.”
“Elaine asked me to keep track of where you were.”
“Keep track how?”
“Which hotel. When you left. Whether you were with anyone.” Brittany swallowed. “She said Bradley needed to know what you were doing.”
“And the picture?”
“She wanted proof you were there. I took it and sent it to her. She sent it to Bradley.” Brittany’s eyes dropped. “I saw his post. I knew what he was doing with it.”
“You knew, and you said nothing.”
“I know.”
She didn’t ask me to understand. That was almost worse. I looked at the open door and saw Connor watching from the room, Madison beside him with her marker still raised.
“Stay there,” I told them. “I’m right outside.”
I stepped a few paces down the hall, keeping the door in sight.
Brittany unzipped her bag. Inside was a thick envelope and a small stack of papers held together with a rubber band.
“I brought copies of the account records,” she said. “The statements I could access. The transfers I helped with.”
I didn’t take them.
“You already told me you moved money.”
“I know. But I only told you what I thought I could get away with saying.” Her jaw flexed. “I kept copies because Bradley changed his story whenever someone asked what had happened. I told myself I was protecting myself in case he blamed me. I was also protecting him.”
“What made you stop?”
Brittany looked toward the room, where Connor had moved closer to Madison. “Seeing that photograph on his page. Elaine asked me to watch you, and I helped Bradley make it look as if you were hurting the kids. I can’t keep pretending that was harmless.”
“It wasn’t harmless.”
“I know.” She pressed the envelope against her stomach. “You don’t have to forgive me. I’m not asking.”
“Good.”
For a second, her face hardened. Then it gave way to something more honest than remorse: fear.
“I don’t know what he’ll do when he finds out I brought these.”
“You could have thought of that before you helped him.”
“I did think of it.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “That’s why I waited.”
The admission settled between us. It wasn’t an apology that could undo the hotel photograph, or the transfers, or the hours I’d spent wondering who else had been told where my children were. But it was the first time Brittany had placed the cost of her choices on herself instead of asking me to carry it.
I took the papers.
The first pages were statements and handwritten notes marking transfers. I recognized the account number from the records Grace had found. Brittany’s handwriting appeared beside several entries—dates, initials, short descriptions that matched the money routed toward Tiffany’s condo.
Then I reached the final page.
One line was circled in blue ink. The transfer was dated the day of the divorce meeting.
I checked the time. It had been initiated after Bradley had slid back in his chair and said there was nothing left to divide.
“Did you move this one?” I asked.
“No.” Brittany shook her head. “I found it when I checked the account after the meeting. I don’t know where it went.”
The page showed an amount, a timestamp, and a completed status. The destination information was cut off in the copy, as if the transfer had been made through another step.
My pulse beat once, hard, beneath my jaw.
“You said the money was supposed to be gone,” I said.
“I said that’s what Bradley told me.”
Behind me, Madison asked Connor if he wanted to pick dinner. He didn’t answer. I could hear the hotel room’s ordinary sounds—the crinkle of a carton, the soft rattle of a marker against the table—carrying on around the paper in my hands.
Brittany had brought evidence. She had also brought proof that my ex-husband’s denials hadn’t ended when the divorce papers were signed.
May you like
I stared at the timestamp.
Bradley hadn’t stopped moving the money. He had made another transfer after the meeting.
