Chapter 2 - The Co-Conspirator
Within forty-her hours Ruth Anne confirmed the documents were real. A week later, another email arrived. This time the sender identified herself: Marin. She told me she was the woman Reed had been seeing. She said she had not known he was married when the relationship began. Reed had told her our marriage was over, that we lived separately, and that the divorce was merely paperwork. She eventually discovered documents in his briefcase showing that not only was he very much married, he was actively moving assets away from his wife. She wrote that Reed intended to leave me with as little as possible and she thought I should know before he finished doing it. I stared at the email for four days, then replied with two words: Prove it.
She did. Bank records. LLC paperwork. Property documents. Screenshots of conversations between Reed and a financial adviser. One message made me stop breathing for several seconds: I need the split clean. She won’t fight. She’s too nice. That’s why I married her. I was standing in Tenley’s prep kitchen when I read it. Ten feet away, my sous chef was tempering chocolate. I read the message twice, put my phone back into my apron, and finished assembling a six-layer opera cake without shaking once. When the cake was finished, I walked into the cooler, shut the door, and said one word loudly enough to frighten a tray of raspberries. Then I went back to work.
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That night, I spoke to Marin for the first time. We met that Saturday at a coffee shop downtown. She arrived carrying a folder thick enough to qualify as light construction material. There is no comfortable way to meet your husband’s mistress, but Marin was not the person Reed had arranged in my imagination. She wasn’t smug. She wasn’t triumphant. Mostly she looked ashamed and angry with herself. “He told me he would leave you after the holidays,” she said. “By then, most of the money would be somewhere you couldn’t touch.” “That schedule doesn’t work for me,” I said.
For the next several weeks, Marin continued seeing Reed long enough to maintain access to information. She sent documents to me. I sent them to Ruth Anne, building our family encyclopedia. Then Marin overheard two conversations between Reed and Norine about the coming separation. During one, Norine said, “The girl from Cicero got eight good years. That’s more than she earned.” When Marin told me, I stood up from my chair, walked into the restaurant restroom, put both hands on the sink, and stared at myself for about ninety seconds before returning. “We’re going to need a bigger folder.” Eventually Reed decided to stage his masterpiece: a Monday dinner at our house where Marin would attend as a professional colleague, Norine would supervise, and I would handle the food like hired staff. I called Ruth Anne. “The papers are ready,” she said. “When should I give them to him?” A beat of silence. “With dessert.” I smiled. “I’m a pastry chef. Obviously.”
