I pulled out my phone. I logged into our joint retirement account. The one we had been building for a decade to buy a house upstate.

The balance was 18.42. That was it.

142,000 dollars had been wired out in 3 separate transfers over the last 2 weeks. The destination was an offshore account in Belize.

I checked our mortgage portal next. Last month, a second mortgage of 85,000 dollars had been taken out on our Queens condo. The signature on the paperwork was mine, but the handwriting was slightly too neat. A forgery.

I felt sick. 10 years. 10 years of sharing a bed, sharing meals, sharing coffee from that blue steel thermos. And she had wiped me out.

I walked inside the house. I had to act normal. The marshals were coming, but I didn’t know when.

Sarah and Clara were in the kitchen. They were whispering. When I entered, they stopped instantly. Clara gave me a tight, forced smile.

I told them I was going to wash up.

I went to the guest bedroom where Sarah had left her leather travel bag. I opened the brass zipper. I dug past her sweaters and makeup bag. At the bottom, wrapped in a black silk scarf, I found it.

A second passport. A green passport from South Africa. The photo was Sarah, but the name was Sarah Vance.

Stuffed next to it were 2 cash bundles and plane tickets to Costa Rica for next Tuesday.

She wasn’t just stealing from me. She was leaving.

I walked back to the kitchen. Clara had set the table. She had made a pot roast, but the smell made my stomach turn.

On the counter, the blue steel thermos sat empty. It looked dull. A relic of a life that didn’t exist.

I sat down at the table. Sarah poured red wine into 2 glasses. She looked at me, her eyes calm and dark.

“You look tired, David. Was the drive that bad?” she asked.

I took the note from my pocket. I laid it flat on the wooden table, right next to her wine glass. Then I put my phone next to it, the screen displaying the bank balance of 18.42.