Ashley arrived the following Thursday seven minutes early.
She stood outside the salon window holding a paper cup of coffee she never drank.
When I unlocked the door, she came in without smiling.
“Are you sure you want me here?”
I looked at her.
“No.”
She gave a nervous laugh.
“That makes two of us.”
I locked the door behind her.
“Sit.”
She placed the coffee on the counter.
Her hands were trembling.
“What happened?”
“He called me last night.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked if I'd been talking to anyone.”
My expression didn't change.
“Did he mention me?”
“No.”
“Then why are you worried?”
“Because he sounded scared.”
That was new.
Dale was many things.
Careful.
Controlling.
Secretive.
But scared was not a word I associated with him.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I hadn't talked to anyone.”
“Good.”
Ashley looked at me.
“You don't hate me?”
“I don't know you well enough to hate you.”
She looked down.
“I slept with your husband.”
“Yes.”
“I knew he was married.”
“You believed you were separated.”
She shook her head.
“I believed what he told me.”
“Then start by telling me what he told you.”
She sat in the chair.
I began working.
For the next forty minutes, Ashley talked.
Dale had taken her to expensive restaurants.
He had bought her jewelry.
He had rented a condominium near the lake.
He had told her the condo belonged to a friend because he didn't want his wife discovering it before the divorce.
He had promised her an engagement ring.
He had said he would sell the family house.
He had said the business was worth far less than it actually was.
And he had told her one thing repeatedly.
“Once I'm free, everything will be ours.”
I stopped trimming.
“Everything?”
She nodded.
“He said there was a separate account.”
“How much?”
“About four hundred thousand.”
“Same number.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I continued.
She looked at me in the mirror.
“He said you didn't understand finances.”
I smiled.
“That sounds like Dale.”
“He said you trusted him with everything.”
“That part was true.”
She looked uncomfortable.
I didn't blame her.
Then she said, “There was another account.”
“What kind?”
“He called it the boat account.”
I put the scissors down.
“How much?”
“Maybe four hundred thousand.”
I looked at her.
“So there are two four-hundred-thousand-dollar accounts?”
“I don't know.”
“Does Dale know?”
“Yes.”
“Does he keep records?”
“He keeps everything.”
I almost laughed.
That was exactly what my husband had told me for years.
He kept records because he was organized.
Now I wondered whether he kept them because he had too much to hide.
Ashley reached into her purse.
“I brought something.”
She handed me a photograph.
It showed Dale standing beside a large white boat.
He was smiling.
His arm was around Ashley's waist.
She looked happy.
Dale looked like a man with nothing to fear.
I turned the photograph over.
There was a date.
Three months earlier.
On the back, Ashley had written the name of the marina.
I stared at it.
“That marina is near his office.”
“I know.”
“You've been there?”
“Twice.”
“Did he ever introduce you to anyone?”
She shook her head.
“He always kept me separate from his business.”
“Why?”
“He said people gossip.”
I nodded slowly.
He had always hated gossip.
Or at least that was what I had believed.
“Did you ever meet a woman named Margaret?”
Ashley frowned.
“No.”
“Margaret Cole?”
“No. Who is she?”
I looked at the photograph again.
“I don't know.”
I wasn't sure why I had said the name.
It had appeared on one of Dale's old business cards several months earlier.
I had found it while cleaning his office.
Bookkeeping consultant.
Margaret Cole.
I had thrown the card away.
Now I wished I hadn't.
Ashley touched my arm.
“Miss C?”
“Yes?”
“There is something else.”
I waited.
“He told me you had signed papers giving him control of your share of the business.”
I felt the room tilt.
“What papers?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he show you?”
“No.”
“Did he say when?”
“About a year ago.”
I stared at the mirror.
A year ago.
That was when Dale had begun telling me the company was in serious trouble.
That was when he had asked me to sign several documents without reading them.
Insurance forms, he had said.
Routine renewals.
Nothing important.
I finished Ashley's hair without another word.
When she left, I didn't close the salon immediately.
I called my sister.
“Do you remember when I signed those business forms for Dale last year?”
She laughed softly.
“You've signed business forms for him for twenty years.”
“Do you remember me signing anything at a bank?”
Silence.
Then she said, “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Carol, why?”
“I'll explain later.”
I hung up.
At three, I called Dale again.
This time I asked a different question.
“Do you remember the papers I signed last year?”
“What papers?”
“Business documents.”
“There are always papers.”
“Did any transfer my ownership interest?”
He laughed.
“You don't own part of the company.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
I said goodbye.
Then I sat at the kitchen table until the light outside faded.
At seven, Dale came home.
He kissed my cheek.
His jacket smelled faintly of gasoline and the cedar cologne he had worn for years.
“How was your day?”
“Busy.”
“Salon busy?”
“Very.”
He poured himself a drink.
I watched his hands.
Steady.
Comfortable.
Nothing about him suggested that his wife had spent the day discovering holes in his story.
He sat across from me.
“You seem quiet.”
“I'm tired.”
He smiled.
“Long day?”
“Long marriage.”
He looked at me.
I smiled.
He didn't.
For one moment, I thought he might understand that something had changed.
Then his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen and silenced it.
“Who was that?”
“Work.”
“Who?”
“Just someone from the office.”
He stood.
“I'm going to shower.”
I watched him walk upstairs.
Ten minutes later, I heard the shower.
I went into his office.
The door was locked.
I stood there with my hand on the knob.
For twenty-six years, I had respected that door.
That night, I decided respect had become another word for permission.
I went downstairs, found the spare key he kept in the drawer, and returned.
The lock clicked.
Inside, everything looked ordinary.
Desk.
Computer.
File cabinets.
Printer.
A framed photograph of our daughter.
I opened the first cabinet.
Receipts.
Contracts.
Nothing unusual.
Second cabinet.
Insurance.
Equipment leases.
Nothing I could immediately understand.
Third cabinet.
Locked.
I searched the desk.
Nothing.
Then I remembered something.
Dale always hid spare keys in predictable places.
I crouched.
Under the desk, taped against the wood, was a small brass key.
I stared at it.
Then I heard the shower stop upstairs.
My heart began pounding.
I unlocked the drawer.
Inside was a thick folder.
My name was printed across the front.
CAROL ANN HARRIS — SIGNATURE DOCUMENTS.
I froze.
The house suddenly seemed too quiet.
I opened it.
The first document carried a date from twelve years earlier.
My name was at the bottom.
The signature looked like mine.
Almost.
But I had never signed it.
I turned the page.
Another.
Then another.
Loan agreement.
Property transfer.
Corporate resolution.
Power of attorney.
My hands began to shake.
Dale had been using my name for years.
Not recently.
Not because of Ashley.
Not because he had suddenly decided to leave me.
This had been planned long before I knew there was another woman.
I heard footsteps in the hallway.
I closed the folder.
The doorknob moved.
“Carol?”
I grabbed the folder.
The door opened.
Dale stood there.
For a second, neither of us moved.
His eyes dropped to what I was holding.
Then his face changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
“What are you doing in here?”
I held the folder against my chest.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
He stepped inside.
“Put that down.”
“No.”
“Carol.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“That isn't yours.”
I looked at him.
“My name is on it.”
He said nothing.
I opened the folder to the first page.
“You signed this.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was authorized.”
“By whom?”
He didn't answer.
I turned another page.
“By me?”
He stared at me.
Then he said the sentence that would stay with me for years.
“You don't understand what you're looking at.”
I closed the folder.
“Then explain it.”
He couldn't.
Not that night.
And for the first time in twenty-six years, I saw my husband standing in front of me without an answer.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Folder in My Hands Contained My Forged Name, but the Next Document Revealed Why Dale Needed Me to Carry His Debts
The Woman Who Knew My Husband Too Well Sat in My Chair and Started Describing a Life I Had Never Seen
Part 2 of 20
