My Husband Bought His Mistress Our Apartment

Marcus Webb's office was on the fourth floor of a building in Midtown that looked like it had been nice once. The elevator groaned. The hallway smelled like old coffee and carpet cleaner.

I knocked on the frosted glass door at nine a.m. exactly.

Webb opened it himself. He was maybe fifty. Tired eyes. Good suit. He gestured me in without small talk.

"Katherine Larson?"

"Yes."

"Daniel said you'd be punctual."

I sat in the chair across from his desk. He sat down and folded his hands.

"What can I do for you?"

I pulled my leather notebook from my bag and set it on the desk between us. I opened it to the first marked page.

"My husband has been making recurring payments to an address in Brooklyn. Twice a month for two years. The address is our old apartment. He told me we sold it three years ago to cover the down payment on our current place."

Webb picked up the notebook. He scanned the columns.

"You documented all of this yourself?"

"Yes."

He flipped a page. Then another.

"Venmo trails. Credit card charges. Cross-referenced dates." He looked up at me. "Most clients come in with suspicions. You came in with a roadmap."

"I worked two jobs once," I said quietly. "I'm good with numbers."

He set the notebook down and leaned back in his chair.

"What do you think is happening?"

"I think my husband maintained ownership of the apartment. I think someone is living there. I think he's been using our money to pay for it."

"You've been to the address?"

"On Christmas Eve."

"And?"

"A woman answered the door. She was wearing a Tiffany necklace I saw on our credit card statement in November. There was a child. A boy. Maybe two years old."

Webb picked up a pen. He didn't write anything. He just held it.

"The child looked like your husband?"

"Yes."

He nodded once. Slow.

"I can get you property records. Bank transfers if they exist. Photos if needed. It'll take seventy-two hours for the first layer. More if you want audio or deeper financial work."

"I want everything," I said.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"This won't be easy to see."

"I've already seen it," I said. "I just need proof."

He took the case.

Three days later, Webb called.

I met him at a coffee shop two blocks from his office. He handed me a manila folder across the table.

"Property records," he said. "The Brooklyn apartment. Purchased eight months ago. Down payment: forty-seven thousand dollars, withdrawn from a joint savings account in your and your husband's names. Title registered solely to Teresa Perez."

I opened the folder. The deed was on top. I saw Gavin's signature on the withdrawal authorization. I saw Teresa's name on the title line.

Forty-seven thousand dollars.

I flipped to the next page. A photocopy of the bank statement. The date was March 14th. I remembered that day. Gavin had told me he was moving funds into a higher-yield account. I'd said that sounded smart.

I closed the folder.

"Thank you."

Webb slid a second folder across the table.

"This one's harder," he said.

I opened it.

Bank transfer records. Twelve months of systematic withdrawals from my trust fund into an account I didn't recognize. Five thousand here. Eight thousand there. Smaller amounts—fifteen hundred, two thousand—spaced irregularly enough that I'd never noticed a pattern.

Ninety-three thousand dollars total.

I turned the page.

Itemized charges linked to the secondary account. Furniture deliveries to the Brooklyn address. Grocery orders. Car insurance payments for a vehicle registered to Teresa Perez. The Tiffany purchase in November—necklace and earrings, fifty-two hundred dollars.

I stared at the line items.

My inheritance. Spent in someone else's apartment. On someone else's life.

I turned another page.

A baby store receipt. Crib, stroller, changing table. Sixty-two hundred dollars. Date: fourteen months ago.

I closed the folder and set it on top of the first one.

Webb was watching me.

"You okay?"

"Yes."

"Most people aren't this calm."

I looked at him.

"I'm not calm," I said quietly. "I'm just not surprised."

He nodded.

"There's more if you want it. I can get communications. Emails, texts if he's careless. It'll take another week."

"Do it."

He wrote something on a notepad and slid it across the table.

"That's my direct line. Call me if anything changes. If he gets suspicious. If you need to move faster."

I folded the paper and put it in my bag.

"Thank you, Mr. Webb."

"Marcus."

I stood. He stood.

"One more thing," he said.

I waited.

"Whatever you're planning, make sure you have a lawyer present before you do anything public. People get messy when money's involved."

"I have a lawyer."

"Good."

I walked back to my car with both folders under my arm.

When I got home, Gavin's shoes were by the door. His jacket was on the chair. He was in the bedroom on a call.

I sat at the kitchen table and opened my leather notebook.

I wrote the new figures in clean columns.

Property: $47,000. Trust fund: $93,000. Tiffany set: $5,200. Baby furniture: $6,200.

I added them up.

Then I turned to a fresh page and wrote the date at the top.

December 29th.

I underlined it twice.

Then I closed the notebook and went to pour myself a glass of wine.