“I don’t know, Ellie. I don’t know anything anymore.”
The line went dead. Ellie sat on the bed, staring at the dark screen of her phone. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she didn’t notice. He didn’t believe her. After everything, he didn’t believe her.
Mike didn’t sleep all night. He sat in his hotel room, staring into the darkness outside the window, trying to make sense of the chaos in his mind. The photos arrived an hour after his wife’s call. From an unknown number, no text, just the images. Ellie in her nightgown, disheveled and frightened. And a man—tall, dark-haired—in her bedroom.
“She warned you first,” one voice in his head whispered. “She called you herself, told you everything. Why would she do that if she was guilty?”
“But maybe that’s exactly why…” another voice argued. “It’s a smart move. Get ahead of the story, play the victim.”
His mother or his wife? He picked up his phone and dialed his mother’s number.
“Hello?” Susan answered in a sleepy voice. “Mikey, what is it? It’s three in the morning.”
“Mom, did you give anyone the keys to my house?”
A pause. Brief, almost imperceptible, but he caught it.
“What keys? What are you talking about?”
“Someone came to see Ellie. A man. He said you gave him the key.”
“What nonsense is this?” His mother’s voice crackled with indignation. “I didn’t give anyone anything. Is that what she told you?”
“Mom…”
“Son, listen to me. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I was afraid of upsetting you. That woman is not who she says she is. I’ve seen her with another man. Twice. At a café near the office.”
“What?”
“I didn’t want to say anything, I thought maybe he was just a colleague, a friend, but now I realize I should have warned you sooner.”
Mike closed his eyes.
“Who did you see?”
“A tall, dark-haired man. She was laughing with him, touching his arm.”
The description matched the man in the photographs.
“Mom, I’ll call you back.”
He threw the phone on the bed and buried his head in his hands. What was happening? Who could he believe? His wife said one thing, his mother another. Both had motives to lie. And both were the closest people in his life. Mike suddenly realized he was crying—for the first time in years, like a child, helpless and bitter.
Ellie didn’t go to work the next day. She sat at home, wrapped in a blanket, and waited. For what, she didn’t know herself. Maybe a call from her husband, maybe his return, maybe the end of the world. Kate arrived around noon. Ellie had called her early in the morning, telling her everything through tears.
“Oh my God…” Her friend hugged her at the door. “How could this happen?”
“She won, Kate.” Ellie’s voice was empty. “She finally won.”
“It’s not over yet.” Kate came into the house and sat her down on the couch. “Tell me everything from the beginning, in detail.”
Ellie told her. About the intrusion, the photos, the conversation with Mike.
“And he didn’t believe you?”
“He said he didn’t know what to believe.”
Kate frowned.
“That’s bad, but not fatal. Listen, we need to find this Rick.”
“How?” Ellie froze.
“The cameras! Mike installed them a year ago after the neighbors were robbed. Small, discreet ones, over the front door and in the living room.”
“Yes, we have them.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
They rushed to the computer. Ellie opened the security camera software and found the recordings from the previous night. There he was—the man entering the house. His face was clearly visible on camera. He took a key from his pocket, opened the door, walked down the hall, went up the stairs, and then came back out. Alone. Ellie was nowhere near him.
“There it is!” Kate triumphantly slapped her hand on the table. “He went in alone and came out alone. You didn’t even go near him!”
Ellie stared at the screen, and for the first time in 24 hours, a flicker of hope stirred in her chest.
“I need to show this to Mike.”
“Wait.” Kate stopped her. “Let’s make a copy first. Just in case.”
They downloaded the video to a flash drive, then to Kate’s cloud storage.
“Now,” her friend said, “we need to find out who this Rick is and how he’s connected to your mother-in-law.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“I have a friend. Works in security at a bank. He can run a background check.”
Kate took out her phone and went into the kitchen. Ellie heard snippets of the conversation. Something about urgency, a favor, “I’ll owe you one.” Ten minutes later, her friend returned.
“Got it. Rick Samuels. An actor. Does freelance work for private events. No criminal record, but he has debts. Big ones.”
“An actor?”
“Yep. Your mother-in-law hired him for a performance. And he’s a professional who’ll play any role for the right price.”
Ellie sank heavily into a chair.
“So what now? This doesn’t prove that my mother-in-law hired him.”
“Not yet. But if we can find a link between them—money transfers, calls, texts…” Kate narrowed her eyes. “You said you were digging into her financial records?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then dig deeper. Look for any transfers to his name or account. Any trace.”
Mike returned two days later. He walked into the house silently, without looking at his wife. He put his suitcase in the entryway and went into the living room. Ellie was waiting for him on the couch. She hadn’t slept in two days. Her eyes were red from tears and exhaustion. But she was ready.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“Yes.” He sat across from her. “We do.”
“Before you say anything, watch this.”
She turned on the laptop and played the video from the security camera. Mike watched in silence, without interrupting. His face was unreadable.
“He came in alone,” Ellie said when the video ended. “And he left alone. I never even left the bedroom.”
“Where did he get the key?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you. Who else has keys to our house?”
Mike was silent for a moment.
“My mom. I gave her a spare set. Just in case.”
“There’s your answer.”
“That doesn’t prove that she…”
“Mike!” Ellie jumped up. “What more do you need? A video recording? We have it. Proof that this man is an actor for hire? We have it. A motive for your mother? We have it. What else do you need to finally open your eyes?”
He was silent. Just sat there, staring at the floor.
“Do you know what hurts the most?” Ellie’s voice trembled. “It’s not that she’s trying to destroy me. It’s that my own husband can’t decide. Between the woman who loves him and the woman who manipulates him. It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair? Saying she manipulates me? She’s my mother. She raised me alone after my father died.”
“She’s stealing money from the company! She sent a man to my bedroom to destroy our marriage! What more proof do you need?”
Mike looked up at her. There was pain in his eyes. Real. Deep.
“Ellie, understand. If everything you’re saying is true, then my whole life has been a lie. I never knew my mother. I never knew the person I loved and trusted more than anyone in the world.”
“That’s easy to say, but hard to accept.” He didn’t finish. He took out his phone and stared at the screen for a long time.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
“About the fact that I need to find out the truth. For myself. Not from you, not from my mom. For myself.”
Ellie slowly sat back down.
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’ll find a way.”
The next few days turned into a strange truce. Mike didn’t accuse Ellie or defend his mother. He just investigated. He asked questions—to her, to colleagues, to the CEO. He studied documents he had never looked at before. Ellie watched him with anxious hope. For the first time, he wasn’t taking sides. For the first time, he was trying to figure it out for himself.
Susan also lay low. At work, she behaved impeccably, barely interacting with her daughter-in-law. But Ellie felt her gaze—wary, waiting. Her mother-in-law was waiting for something. Or preparing a new attack.
Meanwhile, Kate wasn’t idle. Through her contact, she found out that over the past six months, three transfers of $1,500 each had been made to Rick Samuels’ account. The sender was a V.K. (Polina Morozova).
“Morozova?” Ellie frowned. “That’s not my mother-in-law’s last name.”
“Right. But it was her mother’s maiden name. I checked.”
“So she was transferring money under her grandmother’s maiden name?”
“Looks like it. Smart, actually. Most people wouldn’t dig that deep.”
“But it’s still circumstantial evidence.”
“No, but it’s a thread. And threads have a way of becoming ropes.”
Ellie thought for a moment.
“I need to find something in her work files. Something that links her to these transfers.”
“That’s risky.”
“I know. But I don’t have another choice.”
The next day, Ellie arrived at work before anyone else. The office was empty. There was more than an hour until the start of the workday. She went to her mother-in-law’s office and checked—locked. She didn’t have a key. But there was another way.
Susan, for all her caution, made one mistake. She kept her password in a notebook in the top drawer of her desk. Ellie had seen it once, by accident, when she came in with documents to be signed. The drawer was unlocked. Her heart was pounding in her throat as she opened it. The notebook was there—small, leather-bound. Ellie quickly flipped through the pages. There it was, the password to her work computer. She put the notebook back, closed the drawer, and went to her own desk.
She turned on her computer and logged into the local network. Now for the hard part. Ellie knew that all network activity was logged. If she accessed her mother-in-law’s computer directly, it would be visible. But there was a workaround. Through a shared folder that all accountants had access to. She found the right folder and started looking through the files. Most were ordinary work documents, nothing interesting. But deep inside, in a subfolder innocently named “Archive 2019,” she found something.
A spreadsheet. An untitled Excel file. Ellie opened it and froze. It was a ledger. A detailed, meticulous record of all the “off-the-books” transactions for the past three years. Amounts, dates, names of shell companies, recipients. And among them—R.V. Samuels. Three payments of $1,500. For services rendered.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. Her mother-in-law was keeping a second set of books. Recording every penny she stole. Maybe for her own records. Maybe out of habit. Twenty years as Head of Accounting, after all. And now that habit would be her downfall.
Ellie quickly took screenshots, emailed them to her personal account, and closed the file. Her hands were shaking.
“What are you doing here?”
Comments are closed.