PART4

She instinctively covered it with her other hand.

Lamar closed his eyes.

“Roberta, don’t.”

“That bracelet belonged to me.”

Rhoda’s face turned red.

“He gave it to me.”

I looked at my husband.

He had given my anniversary bracelet to my best friend.

Something about that hurt more than the kiss.

Perhaps because the kiss could have been explained away by a moment of weakness, however terrible.

But that bracelet meant he had taken something from our marriage and placed it on another woman’s wrist.

“Take it off,” I said.

Rhoda stared at me.

“What?”

“Take it off.”

She slowly unclasped the bracelet and placed it on the table.

I didn’t touch it.

I didn’t want it anymore.

“Keep it,” I said. “You two seem to have collected enough of my life already.”

Then I stood.

Lamar reached for my arm.

“Roberta, wait.”

I stepped away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“We need to talk.”

“Yes. We do.”

I took my phone from my pocket.

“I have your picture. I have your face. I have your little restaurant date. And I have two years of financial records waiting for someone to examine them.”

His expression changed.

“What financial records?”

I looked directly at him.

“The ones I kept.”

That wasn’t entirely true.

I had kept some paperwork, but I didn’t know what it would prove.

However, I had learned during forty-one years of nursing that sometimes you had to let a patient talk before you knew where the pain was coming from.

Lamar looked toward Rhoda.

She looked frightened.

“Roberta,” he said, lowering his voice, “you don’t understand what you’re getting involved in.”

I gave him a small smile.

“Then explain it to me.”

He looked around the restaurant.

“Not here.”

I nodded.

“Fine. Tomorrow morning. You can tell me everything.”

He seemed surprised.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes. Unless you’re planning to disappear again tonight.”

He looked away.

I picked up my purse.

Then I remembered something.

“One more question, Lamar.”

He looked up.

“Did you ever love me?”

His mouth opened.

For several seconds, he couldn’t answer.

Then he said, “Of course I did.”

I nodded slowly.

“That’s what makes this so difficult.”

I turned and walked away.

Ione was waiting near the entrance.

She didn’t ask questions.

She simply put her arm around mine and walked me back toward the bus.

But before we reached the parking lot, my phone vibrated.

An unknown number.

The message contained only one sentence.

Mrs. Ashby, please don’t meet Lamar tomorrow. You don’t know what he did with your money.

I stopped walking.

Ione looked at my face.

“What is it?”

I showed her the screen.

She read it twice.

“Who sent that?”

“I don’t know.”

Another message arrived.

This time, there was a photograph attached.

It was a picture of a document.

A bank transfer.

My name appeared at the top.

The amount was $60,000.

And underneath it was the date.

October 14.

The same day the sheriff had knocked on my door.

I felt my knees weaken.

“Roberta?” Ione whispered.

I zoomed in on the photograph.

The money had been transferred from our joint savings account into a business account.

The account holder’s name was visible.

Clifton Gaither.

Rhoda’s dead husband.

I stared at it.

Why had my husband transferred sixty thousand dollars to a man who had died three years earlier?

Ione took my phone.

“Lord, Roberta.”

Then another message appeared.

That account was not Clifton’s personal account. It was opened under his name six months after his funeral.

I felt cold despite the Florida sunshine.

I typed a reply.

Who is this?

The answer came almost immediately.

Someone who worked at the bait shop. Someone who knows why Lamar disappeared.

I looked back toward the restaurant.

Through the glass windows, I could see Lamar and Rhoda still sitting at the table.

They were no longer eating.

They were talking urgently.

Then Lamar stood up.

He took his phone from his pocket and looked toward the parking lot.

For one terrible second, our eyes met.

He knew.

He knew someone had contacted me.

Ione squeezed my hand.

“Get on the bus, honey.”

I nodded.

But my eyes stayed on the restaurant.

Because something else had just occurred to me.

If Lamar had been planning to disappear, if he had known the bank would come after the bait shop, and if he had arranged for sixty thousand dollars to be moved on the very day the sheriff came to my house…

Then the drowning story had not been an accident.

It had been a plan.

And perhaps the worst part was that I had helped him carry it out without knowing.

I spent the ride back to the hotel staring at the photograph.

I didn’t sleep that night.

At eleven thirty, I called the unknown number.

A man answered.

“Mrs. Ashby?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Eddie Mercer. I worked for your husband for seventeen years.”

I remembered Eddie.

He had been a quiet man who repaired boat motors and helped customers load fishing equipment.

He had attended Lamar’s funeral.

I could still picture him standing near the back of the church, wearing a black baseball cap.

“Eddie,” I said, “what is happening?”

He sighed.

“I’ve been trying to reach you for months.”

“Why didn’t you call before?”

“Because I was scared.”

“Scared of whom?”

There was a pause.

Then he said something that made my fingers tighten around the phone.

“Your husband didn’t just fake his drowning, Mrs. Ashby. He used your name to move money out of the business before he disappeared.”

I closed my eyes.

“How much?”

“More than sixty thousand.”

“How much, Eddie?”

He hesitated.

“Two hundred and forty thousand dollars.”

I sat upright.

Two hundred and forty thousand.

I had spent two years believing we had barely enough money to survive.

I had sold the truck because I thought we were drowning in debt.

I had given up the bait shop because I thought there was no other way.

And all that time, my husband had apparently taken hundreds of thousands of dollars and started a new life.

“Where did the money come from?” I asked.

“Customers. Suppliers. Business accounts. There were checks that never reached the bank. Some loans. And your signature was on several documents.”

“My signature?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I felt sick.

“I never signed anything for two hundred and forty thousand dollars.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I watched Lamar practice your signature.”

The room seemed to tilt.

I gripped the edge of the hotel desk.

“What?”

“He used to sit in the office after closing. He had copies of your old paperwork. He’d practice signing your name on blank sheets.”

I couldn’t speak.

Eddie continued.

“I didn’t understand what he was doing at first. Then I found the ledger. I confronted him. He told me it wasn’t my business.”

“When?”

CONTINUE FOR NEXT PART5…