Chapter 2 - The Four Hundred Thousand Dollar Secret
Spring in Macon brought blooming dogwoods and a heavy, humid heat that seemed to seep right through the salon windows. But the atmosphere inside my station was ice cold the day Ashley brought out her phone and changed the entire game.
It was a Thursday, precisely 2:05 PM. Ashley bounced through the front door, her face flushed with excitement, waving her phone in the air like a winning lottery ticket.
"Okay, Miss C. You have to see this. He finally did it," she chirped, sliding into my chair and thrusting the screen toward the mirror.
I leaned in, my heart hammering a violent rhythm against my ribs. Displayed on the screen was a photograph of a staggering two-carat diamond ring resting in a velvet box.
"He says the divorce is going to be easy," Ashley beamed, her eyes sparkling with malicious glee. "Apparently, his wife won’t fight him because she doesn’t even know what they actually own. She thinks they’re practically broke."
I misted her hair with water, my hands remarkably steady. "She doesn't?"
Ashley let out a bright, dismissive laugh. "Please. He’s been telling her the company has been struggling for almost two years. She even started cleaning a dentist’s office on Saturdays because she thinks they need extra money."
I gripped the spray bottle tightly. Every word she spoke was a mirror reflecting my own pathetic reality. I did clean that dentist’s office. I did skip meals and put off doctor visits. And all the while, my husband was funding a high-end lifestyle for a woman young enough to be our daughter.
"Miss C? You good?" Ashley asked, catching my unblinking stare in the glass.
"I’m fine. Hold still," I murmured, adjusting a section of her blonde highlights with surgical precision.
Ashley leaned closer to the mirror, lowering her voice as if sharing a state secret. "Anyway, here’s the crazy part. He keeps the real money in a separate account connected to the boat—that fifty-foot cruiser he keeps docked at Lake Sinclair. There’s something like four hundred thousand dollars hidden in that corporate account."
Four hundred thousand dollars. The exact sum that could have secured our retirement, could have paid off our mortgage, could have given us peace. Instead, it was sitting in a slush fund, waiting to be squandered on a girl who couldn't spell loyalty.
Then, Ashley dropped the masterstroke of her betrayal. "And next week, he’s transferring all the company debt into his wife’s name. Equipment financing, unpaid taxes, everything. Once the divorce is finalized, she gets legally and financially buried under thousands in liabilities while he walks away clean with the cash."
My hands stopped dead in her hair. For half a second, the universe stood completely still.
"How is he planning to get her signature?" I asked, my voice dangerously low.
Ashley smiled complacently at her own reflection. "Oh, he isn't asking. He’s signing everything for her. He told me he’s been copying her signature on corporate documents for years. She never reads anything he gives her anyway."
That part was an absolute fact. For two decades, Dale would slide papers across our kitchen table, flash a warm smile, and press a pen into my hand. “Just sign here, sweetheart.” And because I loved him, because I trusted him, I always did without reading a single line.
Suddenly, Ashley’s phone buzzed violently against her thigh. She glanced down, her lips curving into an intimate, secretive smile.
"Is that him?" I asked, my eyes locked onto her reflection.
"That’s him," she sighed, tapping a quick reply.
"What does he want?"
Ashley turned the phone just enough so the screen caught the light of the vanity mirror, giving me a clear view of the incoming text message: Did you ask your hair lady about the papers? You said she’s a notary, right? Needs to be someone who doesn’t know us.
I stared at the glowing words. My notary public certificate had been proudly hanging right next to my salon mirror for eleven years. Apparently, in all twenty-six years of our marriage, Dale had never once spent enough time inside my workplace to notice.
Ashley slipped the phone back into her lap, looking up at me with bright, hopeful eyes. "He has some legal documents that need notarizing next Friday. He’ll pay you cash. A very generous amount of cash."
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I didn’t snap. I didn't pull a single hair out of her head. I simply offered her the calmest, warmest smile I could muster.
"Sure, sweetheart. Tell him Friday at four o'clock."
