her.
‘Are you worried about Bellweather too?’
She went silent.
Tessa turned toward Mason.
‘You said the consultant payments were for legitimate expansion work.’
Mason didn’t answer.
He lunged toward me and caught my wrist.
Noah shouted, ‘Dad, stop!’
A courthouse security officer who had been watching the exchange approached quickly.
‘Sir, let go and step back.’
Mason released me.
His lawyer hurried over and told him to stop speaking about company finances in public.
The officer separated us and asked whether I needed assistance getting to my vehicle.
I said yes.
As I helped Noah into the SUV, Mason called after me.
‘You’ll regret this, Lena! You’re still tied to the business!’
I turned just long enough to answer.
‘You insisted that I wasn’t.’
Then I drove away.
I didn’t know whether the bank would prove everything the report suggested.
I didn’t know how long the investigation would take.
But for the first time in a year, Mason couldn’t make the problem disappear simply by calling me difficult.
***
Our temporary apartment had beige carpeting, a broken kitchen drawer, and windows overlooking a grocery-store parking lot.
Noah loved it immediately because the living room had enough space for his toy train tracks.
That first evening, he placed his backpack beside the sofa and asked whether he could choose where his dinosaur lamp went.
‘Anywhere you want,’ I told him.
He carried it to the bedroom and set it on the nightstand.
Then he returned to the kitchen.
‘Mom, did I make Dad mad?’
I stopped unpacking.
‘No, sweetheart.’
‘He looked really angry when I yelled.’
I knelt in front of him.
‘You did nothing wrong.
Grown-ups are responsible for what they do, even when they’re upset.’
He considered that.
‘Are we poor now?’
The question hurt more than anything Mason had said that morning.
‘We’re going to have to be careful with money for a while,’ I answered.
‘But you have food, a bed, school, and people who love you.
We’re going to be all right.’
He nodded, then wrapped his arms around my neck.
That night, after he fell asleep, Grace called.
‘Lena, Julian found another issue in the records the investigators requested.’
I sat at the small kitchen table.
‘What issue?’
‘An account opened under Noah’s name.
The records suggest that his Social Security number was used to establish it.’
I couldn’t speak.
Grace continued carefully.
‘There’s a transfer associated with the account, and the account-opening paperwork contains a parent or guardian authorization.
The bank is verifying whether that authorization was genuine.’
‘Noah doesn’t have a business account.’
‘I know.’
For months, I had worried about the money Mason might have stolen from the company.
Now I understood that our son might have been pulled into the scheme without knowing it.
‘Grace, can they come after Noah for this?’
‘He’s a child.
We’ll work with the bank to document the identity misuse and protect him.
We need to establish precisely what happened.’
I looked toward his bedroom.
His dinosaur lamp cast a faint green glow through the open door.
I had already lost my marriage, my home, and my place in a business I helped create.
I would not let Mason put our child’s future at risk too.
***
The following morning, I requested information about placing
