The Water Between Us

Rebecca Shaw called Simone the next afternoon.

Simone almost rejected the call.

Marcus stopped her.

“Record it if your state law permits.”

“It does.”

Simone pressed the button.

“Hello, Rebecca.”

There was a long silence.

Then Rebecca said, “I need to see you.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“You forged my signature.”

“I can explain.”

“You were sleeping with my husband.”

“I can explain that too.”

“Can you explain my daughter?”

Rebecca began to cry.

The sound made Simone’s skin crawl.

“Stop.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop crying to me.”

Rebecca inhaled sharply. “David lied to me.”

Simone looked at Marcus.

“About what?”

“He said you were separated.”

“We lived in the same house.”

“He said it was for appearances.”

“He took me to prenatal appointments.”

Rebecca said nothing.

Simone continued, “You knew I was pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“And you still believed we were separated?”

“I believed what I wanted to believe.”

“That’s the first honest thing you’ve said.”

Rebecca’s voice dropped. “Calder is going to kill him.”

“That sounds like David’s problem.”

“No. You don’t understand. He thinks David hid money in your trust.”

“He didn’t.”

“I know that now.”

“Now?”

“David told Calder you controlled the money and refused to release it.”

Simone closed her eyes.

“He blamed me.”

“He was trying to protect himself.”

“By pointing a criminal at his pregnant wife?”

Rebecca whispered, “Yes.”

Marcus leaned closer to the phone.

Simone asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because Calder knows you froze the accounts.”

“How?”

“David told him.”

“Of course he did.”

“He’s desperate.”

“No, Rebecca. Desperate people ask for help. David uses people.”

Rebecca began speaking quickly. “I have documents. Copies. Payments, routes, names. I kept them because I got scared.”

“Scared of David?”

“Of Calder.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t.”

That answer surprised her.

Rebecca continued, “But you should trust the files.”

“Where are they?”

“In a storage unit in Raleigh.”

Marcus shook his head and mouthed, Trap.

Simone said, “Send the location to my lawyer.”

“No.”

“Then we’re done.”

“I’ll only give them to you.”

“Why?”

“Because I need protection.”

Simone almost laughed.

“You want me to protect you?”

“I know what I did.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

“I changed the loan guarantee.”

Marcus’s eyes sharpened.

Rebecca went on. “David told me you agreed verbally. I knew that wasn’t enough. I used the old signature file.”

“That’s fraud.”

“I know.”

“And the eight hundred thousand?”

“I prepared that too.”

“Did David tell you to?”

“Yes.”

“Say it clearly.”

“David told me to create the transfer authorization using your stored signature.”

Marcus wrote something on the legal pad.

Simone’s hands were shaking.

“What happened at the lake?” she asked.

Rebecca went quiet.

“Tell me.”

“We were arguing.”

“About what?”

“Calder had given David a deadline. David promised to get the trust money. I told him I was done.”

“You were leaving him?”

“I was leaving everything.”

“Then why did he save you?”

Rebecca began to sob again.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“He thought I had the drive.”

Simone stopped.

“What drive?”

“The files. The evidence. I told him I copied everything onto a flash drive.”

“Did you have it?”

“No.”

“Then David saved you because he thought you had evidence that could destroy him.”

Rebecca whispered, “I think so.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Not love.

Not panic.

Evidence.

David had swum past his pregnant wife because he believed his mistress carried a piece of plastic that could send him to prison.

Simone’s grief changed shape.

It sharpened.

“Where is the drive?” she asked.

Rebecca answered, “I hid it before we went to the lake.”

“Where?”

“At your house.”

Simone stared at the phone.

Rebecca’s next words came barely above a whisper.

“Inside the nursery.”

Marcus ended the recording and immediately made two encrypted copies.

“Her admission about the transfer is significant,” he said.

“So is the drive.”

“Yes, but we treat that location as compromised until law enforcement can secure it.”

Simone stood by the window, arms folded.

“She hid evidence in my baby’s room.”

“I know.”

“She entered my house while I was carrying Ava and hid proof of crimes behind something David and I chose together.”

Marcus said nothing.

The violation felt intimate in a way the forged bank papers had not. Money could be restored. Passwords could be changed. The nursery had been sacred because Simone had believed it belonged only to anticipation and love.

Now even that room had been used for secrets.

Evelyn came beside her. “The room still belonged to you and that baby. What other people did there does not get the final word.”

Simone closed her eyes.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “we get the drive.”

Before ending the call, Simone made Rebecca repeat the exact location twice. She wrote it down word for word, then photographed the note and sent it to Marcus.