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Drawers were opened. I could hear the kitchen cupboards being searched. More agents came in and went upstairs, carrying boxes. They came out with them full of files they had to have taken from Philip's home office. They took his desktop computer and my laptop. They opened and closed more things, rifling through absolutely everything, carrying out some, leaving others.

"If there's nothing on the computers, they'll be returned to you," one of them said. I nodded, knowing that it would probably be a long time before that happened, if ever. Unless the lawyer his parents were getting him could do something.

I looked around. The Christmas presents we'd barely had time to carry in, never mind put away, were still sitting there on the dining room table. Philip had carried them in just last night. Laura's new blanket was draped over the back of the sofa. Some of the boys' toy cars were on the floor. And people were dismantling my home as if it belonged to someone else, someone terrible who had done a truly dreadful thing.

I stood there with two of my children behind me watching The Count counting bats, and my new baby daughter in my arms, a little bubble of milk still on her lips from where I'd just fed her, and all I could do was watch it happen as every part of the life I'd thought was safe was being taken apart in front of my eyes.

And I had no idea how to stop it.

4

DARREN

The next few days passed in a blur.

Philip's parents found him a criminal defense attorney, and the attorney told me there was very little I could do except look after the children and let him do his job. Philip was being held while everything was sorted out, and the investigation was moving far too quickly for any of us to understand what was happening. I kept expecting someone to call and tell me there had been a mistake, but they never did. Instead, the phone calls brought more information.

At first, it was the money. There were missing funds from trusts Philip had been responsible for managing. Money that should have been sitting safely in accounts had been moved elsewhere, and investigators were tracing transfers that had eventually disappeared into accounts and expenses connected to Philip. There were hours he'd billed to clients that he had never worked, meetings he had charged for that hadn't happened, and expenses that had nothing to do with the firm. The numbers were large enough that I couldn't even wrap my head around them.

I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee growing cold between my hands while the attorney went through what the investigators had uncovered so far. I'd stopped noticing the coffee hours ago. My fingers were wrapped so tightly around the mug that they ached, and every few minutes I had to force myself to loosen them.

The attorney had been meeting with Philip, reviewing the allegations and evidence that had been provided to the defense, and trying to piece together what had happened. He explained what they knew, what the investigators believed they could prove, and what was still being investigated.

I kept shaking my head. "No."

It was all I seemed capable of saying. No. This isn't Philip. This can't be Philip.

The attorney didn't argue with me. He just kept explaining, answering what questions he could and admitting when he didn't have an answer yet. I could feel my pulse beating hard in my throat, and my stomach had been knotted since the first phone call that morning.

And then came the apartment. Philip had rented a second apartment downtown, and I had never known it existed. I stared at the attorney when he told me, my mouth going dry.

"He had an apartment?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

He gave me the address, and I knew the building. I'd driven past it countless times. I had probably driven past the very windows where my husband had been living part of a life I knew nothing about. According to the records the investigators had obtained, the rent had been paid with money Philip had embezzled. So had the utilities, the furniture, and other expenses connected to the place. My chest tightened until it hurt to breathe. I put the coffee down because my hand had started trembling.

"Why?"

The attorney hesitated. "We're still putting everything together. We don't know yet."

That answer was becoming one I'd hear a lot. We don't know yet. We're still investigating. We'll know more soon. I wanted to scream that I needed to know now. I needed someone to explain how the man I'd married had apparently been living another life while I was at home raising our children and believing everything was fine.

There was no single explanation that could make any of it make sense. I'd thought the worst thing that could happen was discovering my husband had stolen money. I'd been very, very wrong.

The next revelation was the business trips. Some of them had never happened, which was bad enough. I remembered those trips. I remembered helping Philip pack, reminding him where he'd left his phone charger, kissing him goodbye, and listening to him complain about early flights and boring hotel rooms. I'd missed him when he was gone. I'd worried about him when flights were delayed.

Some of those trips had been completely fabricated. He'd never gone anywhere. He'd simply made sure they appeared on the firm's records. But some of the trips had been real, and that was where things became even worse because Philip hadn't always been alone. He'd used company money to upgrade flights and hotels so that his long-term boyfriend could accompany him.

I felt the blood drain from my face. "His long-term boyfriend?"

The attorney nodded. "That's what the evidence indicates."

The words hit me hard. Philip hadn't simply cheated. He'd apparently been maintaining an ongoing relationship with someone else, taking him on business trips and spending stolen money on him while coming home to me and carrying on our marriage as though nothing was wrong.

How long had this been going on? And who was it?