Keeping me from jumping ahead.
“Adrian Voss owns the company receiving the money.”
Miriam wrote that down.
“Who is Adrian Voss?”
“My wife's ex-boyfriend.”
She stopped writing.
Then:
“Do not confront either of them yet.”
“That seems to be everyone's advice.”
“Good advice tends to repeat itself.”
“What am I supposed to do? Eat dinner with her?”
“If necessary.”
I looked at her.
Miriam folded her hands.
“Daniel, right now you have two separate problems.”
“My marriage and the fraud.”
“Yes.”
She pointed at the bank papers.
“Do not confuse them.”
“How can I not?”
“Emotionally? You can't. Legally and financially? You must.”
She asked me about our accounts.
Savings.
Retirement.
Mortgage.
Credit cards.
Insurance.
My salary.
Vanessa’s salary.
She asked whether either of us had moved large amounts of money recently.
That question made me remember something.
Three weeks earlier, Vanessa had transferred $12,000 from our savings account.
When I noticed, she told me it had been moved into a higher-yield account through her employer's financial adviser.
I had asked for the account details.
She said she would send them.
She never did.
I told Miriam.
She wrote it down.
“Find the statement.”
“I can access the account.”
“Then download copies of everything you are legally authorized to access.”
That evening, after Vanessa went upstairs, I sat at the dining-room table and reviewed twelve months of joint statements.
The $12,000 had not gone to a savings account.
It had gone to something called V Meridian Consulting.
Another company.
Registered two months earlier.
Same Manhattan mailing address as AV Hospitality.
I felt nauseous.
The next day I forwarded the records to Miriam.
I also contacted the bank's fraud department again.
They agreed to mail a complete copy of the application to an alternate address.
My office.
That mattered.
Because whoever had submitted the loan had selected electronic correspondence only and listed a separate email address for me.
An address that looked almost convincing.
Mine was:
One extra word.
A fake account.
Someone had built an entire version of me.
Same income.
Same driver's license.
Same home.
Same wife.
Different email.
Different signature.
Different decisions.
The packet arrived three days later.
Thirty-eight pages.
Most of it was routine lending paperwork.
Then I found the authorization page.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
It was close.
Very close.
Whoever created it had copied the way I made the D in Daniel and the strange upward stroke at the end of Mercer.
But it was too clean.
I rarely signed exactly the same way twice.
This one looked like something traced.
My eyes moved to Vanessa’s signature.
That one looked natural.
The same slightly oversized V she had written on birthday cards for ten years.
I sat in my office holding that page.
That was the moment jealousy died.
There was no room left for it.
Something much larger had replaced it.
I stopped wondering whether Vanessa had slept with Adrian.
I started wondering how long she had been willing to risk my identity, credit, and home for him.
That evening she came home carrying takeout.
Thai food.
The same dishes we used to order in our Jersey City apartment.