“Can we prove what he did?”
Emmett glanced at the evidence spread across the table. “Maybe not all at once. But enough to bring him into court and strip the mask off.”
Dorothy swallowed. “Then do it.”
For the next week, Dorothy lived in two worlds.
In one, she returned to Birchwood Lane each morning with casseroles from church women and folded towels and the weary gentleness expected of a grieving mother. She fed Margot and sang to Theodore and kissed Bridget’s forehead. She thanked the temporary nurse. She let Laurel’s little barbs slide off her as if she didn’t hear them.
“Some women do not know when to step back,” Laurel said one afternoon while watching Dorothy rock Theodore.
Dorothy smiled without warmth. “Some women never learned how to step forward.”
In the other world, Dorothy documented everything.
Dates. Times. Statements. Visitors.
Grant’s mistress arrived at the house again on the ninth day after Colleen’s death. This time she did not sneak through the garden. She parked in the driveway in a cream-colored Mercedes and carried in a garment bag and a bouquet of peonies as though she were a guest entitled to comfort.
Dorothy met her at the front door.
The woman smiled first. “You must be Colleen’s mother. I’m Vivian. I’ve been helping Grant.”
Dorothy took in the expensive coat, the flawless makeup, the particular confidence of a woman who believed grief had already made everyone around her too weak to challenge her.
“No,” Dorothy said. “You’ve been waiting.”
Vivian’s smile faltered.
Dorothy stepped aside anyway because scenes at doorways are satisfying only in movies, and she had no interest in satisfaction that could not survive a courtroom.
That night, Dorothy heard another whisper through the baby monitor.
Another low female laugh.
And the next morning, a framed photograph of Colleen on the piano had disappeared.
By the twelfth day, Emmett’s forensic accountant had found the first financial fracture: a limited liability company Grant had opened eighteen months earlier. Money had been moved from joint accounts in increments small enough to avoid attention. The totals were staggering. A condominium downtown titled in Vivian’s name. Monthly payments labeled consulting fees. Eighty-five thousand dollars—Colleen’s inheritance from her father—shifted without any signed authorization.
“That’s theft,” Dorothy said.
“That,” Emmett replied, “is the beginning.”