Chapter 5
I booked another hotel before I went back to the room.
The new place was smaller, farther from the river, and bright with the kind of cheerful yellow walls that made every corner feel exposed. I chose it because it was across town and because the clerk didn’t ask why I wanted a room that afternoon.
Connor watched me fold our clothes back into the suitcases.
“Are we leaving because of Dad?”
I paused with Madison’s sweater in my hands. I could have said no, but the lie would have landed between us and stayed there.
“We’re changing hotels because I want a little more privacy,” I said. “It’s a precaution, not a punishment. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Madison stopped arranging her stuffed rabbit beside the pillows.
“Are we in trouble?”
“No, honey. We’re not in trouble.”
Connor studied my face, measuring the words against everything he already knew.
“Does Dad know where we’re going?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer frightened Madison more than a quick reassurance would have. She tucked the rabbit into her backpack and pulled the zipper shut.
“Can I sit by you in the car?”
“Of course.”
We took a cab. Connor sat beside me, quiet, one hand gripping the strap of his backpack. Madison leaned against my shoulder and watched London slide past the window, all wet stone and blurred lights. I kept my phone face down on my lap and told myself I was moving us, not running.
At the new hotel, I made sure the children had something to eat before I called Brittany. She answered by video on the third ring. Her living room appeared behind her, familiar even through the screen: the pale sofa, the framed family photograph, the ceramic bowl Bradley had once brought her from a work trip.
She looked tired. Not frightened. Not yet.
“Why did Bradley’s hidden money pay for Tiffany’s home?” I asked.
Brittany’s mouth tightened.
“Sarah, you can’t just call and accuse me of stealing.”
“I asked why.”
“I don’t know what you think you’ve found.”
“Payments toward the condo. Bradley told me there was no money for Connor’s soccer equipment or Madison’s dental treatment. You had access to the account.”
“Access isn’t the same as control.”
“No. But you said you helped him with some things.”
She glanced away from the screen. Behind her, a door clicked shut.
“He was going to put the money back,” she said.
The words hit with a small, sickening certainty. I leaned closer to the phone.
“So you knew he was using it.”
“I knew he was moving money around. He said it was temporary.”
“Temporary for whom?”
“For him. For the family. He had investments tied up. He said Tiffany needed help getting the condo, and he’d repay it once things settled.”
“Things settled when?”
“I don’t know, Sarah.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“I trusted my brother.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me he was paying for another woman’s home while our daughter was being told she needed to wait for dental treatment?”
Brittany’s eyes flashed.
“Don’t make this about Madison.”
“It was about Madison when I was trying to figure out how to pay for her appointment.”
“I said Bradley would repay it.”
“You keep saying what Bradley promised. I’m asking what you did.”
Her face hardened, and for a moment I saw the sister who had sat beside him at the mediator’s table, wearing that pleased little smile as I slid over the penthouse keys.
“I sent some transfers,” she said. “Not all of them. He asked me to move money from the account to the one he gave me. He said he was handling it.”
“Did you know it was going to Tiffany?”
“I knew some of it was for the condo.”
“Some?”
“I didn’t keep a ledger.”
“But you knew enough to send it.”
Brittany pressed her lips together. The silence wasn’t an answer, but it wasn’t empty, either.
“Bradley told me it was his money,” she said at last. “He said the two of you had already separated your finances.”
“We were still married.”
“I didn’t know what you’d agreed.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“No. I didn’t.”
The admission was quiet enough to be almost tender. It made the betrayal worse, not better. Brittany had stood in my kitchen. She had watched Madison squint through a headache and Connor beg for the equipment his team required. She had known my children well enough to remember their favorite snacks, their fears, the names of their friends.
I wanted her to offer something that would make those memories safe again. She offered nothing.
“Why call me now?” I asked. “Why not tell Bradley what you told me?”
“Because you’re making this bigger than it is.”
“Money was moved out of an account he controlled. You helped. He told me it didn’t exist.”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
“Then tell me the part you know.”
Brittany looked down at her phone, and the video image jumped as she shifted it in her hand.
“I’ve told you enough.”
“No, you’ve told me you helped and that you trusted him. That’s not the same as telling me what happened.”
“He’s my brother.”
“And I was your family, too.”
Her eyes lifted. There was a flicker there—shame, maybe, or anger at being asked to look directly at what she’d done.
“You should come home,” she said. “You’re making everything worse from over there.”
“For whom?”
“For the kids.”
I kept my voice low. “Don’t use them to make me stop asking you questions.”
“I’m not. They’re caught in the middle.”
“Then stop putting them there.”
Brittany’s jaw worked once, as if she had another warning ready. Instead, she looked past the camera, toward whoever had entered the room.
I thought of the children in our hotel room, one settling the rabbit under a pillow, the other making sure his sister’s suitcase wasn’t too heavy. They had done nothing to deserve the carelessness of the adults who claimed to love them.
“Was that you?” I asked.
Brittany went still.
“Was what me?”
“Were you the one watching the children?”
May you like
For a heartbeat, she didn’t move at all. Then her face vanished from the screen.
The call ended.
