“I’m sure,” Cathy says, laughing. “I miss having a classroom full of little people. It’s nice having someone else in this big ol’ house.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then either I or Scott will come by in a couple of hours.”
Aimee comes home to an empty house, a rarity. She takes a shower, washing off the day’s sweat and grime, and changes into clean sweats. Downstairs, she makes a cup of tea and decides to follow Cathy’s lead and pay the bills. She grabs the mail she stuck in her bag a few days earlier and places the stack beside her open laptop on the kitchen island. She’s halfway through the stack when she finds a letter from the financial institution where they keep their investments and IRAs. Since both she and Scott are self-employed, they have no work 401(k)s and are entirely responsible for saving for their own retirements. They have set it up so that the money comes out of their checking accounts automatically. Once they’ve maxed out their yearly IRA contributions, they send money into several mutual funds.
The letter is one sheet of paper, a confirmation for the withdrawal of fifty thousand dollars. At first, Aimee thinks this is the same fifty thousand dollars that Scott mentioned withdrawing earlier. But after double-checking the accounts on her computer, she realizes there have been two fifty-thousand-dollar withdrawals—one from their home mortgage equity account, and one from their mutual funds. One hundred thousand dollars in total, gone.
She feels her stomach lurch. The numbers on the computer screen grow blurry and unreadable.One hundred thousand dollars.Aimee stands up, shaken. She paces the kitchen, trying to understand what he could have done with so much money.
Neither she nor Scott had rich parents. She went in state to Towson University and worked summers and during the school year to pay the tuition. Same for Scott. They had saved while renting all through their twenties and early thirties, skipping vacations and not eating out.
East Bethesda seemed out of their budget when house shopping, but they had both fallen in love with the house and the quiet block. The school district was great, and it was close to both Scott’s work and to Aimee’s client base. It was a financial stretch,but they were confident that they would continue to earn more money in their careers, and so far they’d been right. Aimee had broken six figures with her landscaping company last year, and Scott was doing even better than that.
But she was still money conscious. She still clipped coupons and preferred to pay cash for big purchases like her truck. It was second nature to her. They might have money now, but there was no family fortune to fall back on if things went south.
Sometimes it was a sore point with Gwen and Lisa. They seemed to be under the impression that she could afford the little luxuries—like spa days—that they enjoyed. Gwen didn’t exactly advertise that her parents subsidized her and Anton’s life but once when Gwen was drunk, she let slip that her parents provided ten thousand dollars a month. As for Lisa and Marcus, he was making close to a million dollars a year as a partner at his lobbying firm.
With trembling hands, Aimee grabs her phone and dials Scott’s number.
“Hey, sweetie, what’s up?”
“Scott, did you take fifty thousand dollars out of our retirement account?” There’s no response, but she can hear street noise in the background, so she knows he is still there. “Scott, you need to answer me.”
“How did you find out?”
“Does it matter?” She is practically shouting. “What kind of response is that? Who cares how I found out?”
“Please, calm down. I can explain everything.”
“Great. I’m listening.”
“Now? I’m outside a Starbucks in Reston. Can we talk tonight?”
“You need to tell me something, Scott. I’m losing it here. What did you do with one hundred thousand dollars?”
“I made a bad financial decision, Aimee.”
His words hit her like a blow to the chest. “What does that mean?” she whispers.
“I was scammed.”
Aimee struggles to slow her breath and calm down. “Maybe there’s a way to get the money back. Have you gone to the police?”
“No. That’s why I hired Block. He’s going to help me. That’s why I was meeting him Saturday night. And Sunday. I was going to come to you once I had all the information I needed.”
“I don’t understand. Why hire him and not go to the police?”
“That’s a good question, and I can’t really answer it right now. But I’ll answer everything tonight. I promise. I’ll lay it all out for you. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
He hangs up and Aimee stares at the phone. Her whole body is shaking. Trust him? Scott has been keeping secrets, ones that affect her and the kids. Last week she trusted him implicitly, but now she doesn’t even know how she’s going to get through the rest of the day.
Scott, what have you done?
21
LAST JANUARY
After they had sex for the second time, Lisa and Anton lay in a pile of limbs and throw blankets and pillows on the living room floor, breathless.