Chapter 3 - The Second Ledger
Joanne Feld’s office on West Adams Street smelled like old books and very expensive coffee. Joanne herself was fifty-four, with silver-streaked hair cut into an immaculate bob and eyes that took in my rumpled cardigan, my running shoes, and the ThinkPad under my arm without a shred of pity. Pity was useless in family court; Joanne preferred numbers.
She spread Walter’s bank receipt across her glass desk beside the certified title deed to my apartment, which Priya had helped me pull from the Cook County clerk’s digital registry on the drive over.
“Let’s establish the baseline,” Joanne said, tapping a red pen against the deed. “You purchased this two-bedroom condo on North Hermitage in 2018 for three hundred and ten thousand dollars. Your down payment was sixty-two thousand dollars, paid exclusively from your savings account at Chase. Correct?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have every bank statement from that year saved on a cloud drive.”
“And you married Mark Hartley in October of 2021. You did not add him to the deed, despite his requests.”
“I didn't add him,” I affirmed.
“Good girl,” Joanne said, not smiling. “Now, look at this wire transfer. Sixty thousand dollars deposited into an account belonging to ‘Hartley Holdings LLC.’ Do you know what Hartley Holdings is?”
“I’ve never heard the name before ten o'clock this morning.”
Joanne swiveled her monitor toward me. She had already run a corporate search with the Illinois Secretary of State’s business database.
“Hartley Holdings LLC was registered in Delaware two years ago. The sole managing member is Mark Hartley. The registered agent is an attorney in Naperville. And look at the filing address.”
I leaned in, squinting at the screen.
The address wasn't an office building. It wasn't our apartment on Hermitage.
It was a residential address on an avenue in St. Petersburg, Florida.
A single-story bungalow with a screened pool, purchased fourteen months ago for four hundred and ten thousand dollars.
My breath stopped entirely.
“The Florida condo,” I whispered.
“It’s not a condo,” Joanne corrected coldly. “It’s a three-bedroom single-family home with a pool and an outdoor kitchen. The deed is held under Hartley Holdings LLC. Mark put twenty percent down—eighty-two thousand dollars. Sixty thousand came from his parents’ check, which they thought was going into your Chicago condo to secure their retirement stay. The other twenty-two thousand...”
Joanne paused, watching my face.
“The taproom,” I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “The twenty thousand dollars we supposedly lost when his college friend went bankrupt.”
“He didn't lose it in a bar, Rachel,” Joanne said gently, her professional armor cracking just enough to show genuine sympathy. “He stole it from your joint savings account, funneled it through Delaware, and used it as his portion of the down payment on a house in Florida. He told his parents you took their money for this Chicago apartment, making them believe they owned an equity share here so they would move in, pay your groceries, and clear out of Illinois while he set up his private real estate portfolio down south.”
Priya let out a low, venomous curse from the couch behind me.
I sat completely still. The hum of the traffic on Adams Street drifted up through the double-pane windows.
For five months, I had apologized for walking too loudly on my own hardwood floors. I had scrambled eggs at dawn on four hours of broken sleep because an old woman pounded on my bedroom wall. I had typed user-flow analyses on an ironing board because Walter’s back hurt on the couch, while Mark kissed my forehead and told me to be quiet because I was ‘good at quiet.’
I wasn't good at quiet. I was good at surviving.
And survival meant you didn't cry when the roof fell in; you picked up a hammer.
“Joanne,” I said, meeting her eyes. “What does Illinois law say about fraud within a marriage?”
May you like
Joanne leaned back, and for the first time, a small, dangerous smile touched the corners of her mouth.
“It says that Mark Hartley is about to have the worst week of his miserable life. But before we file for divorce, we need to make sure Diane and Walter understand exactly who their golden boy really is.”
