My Husband Framed Me. I Took It All. Chapter 11

My Husband Framed Me. I Took It All. Chapter 11: Thursday Night

The audit was Thursday.

Every quarter, Curtis Hollis sat in his office with his ledger and his six-account statements and made me walk him through every dollar, because he liked to hear it, the way some men like to count their teeth.

I’d been ready for this Thursday for eight months.

Dee’s nephew had made his last trip to Augusta on Tuesday. In the box were three things: a prepaid phone, a stamped envelope addressed to the investigations desk of the Boston Globe, and a note from Naomi Pryce that said only, Filed early. Wednesday. Hold on.

Wednesday.

Which meant that by Thursday night, a judge in Suffolk County had a video of Cal Reeves, and Grant’s phone records, and Ridgeline’s wire transfers, and by Friday morning someone in a DA’s office was going to say the name Curtis Hollis out loud.

Which meant the warden had roughly twelve hours to decide what to do about me.

I went to his office at seven.

He was in a good mood. That worried me more than anything. He poured himself a scotch and gestured at the chair and said, “Let’s see how Ms. Vale is doing,” with the fondness of a man talking about a

mistress.

“Very well, sir. Two point six million as of this morning.”

“Show me.”

I showed him. Statement by statement. Account by account. The two LLCS, the offshore trust I’d opened in year seven, all of it in Margaret Vale’s slanting left hand. He nodded along. He’d never understood a single page and he’d never once asked me to explain, because asking would have meant admitting.

“You’ve been a gift, Elena.” He sipped. “Truly. I want you to know I’ve spoken to your husband. He’s very reasonable. If Ms. Pryce’s little motion goes away, he’s prepared to be quite generous. To both of us.”

“Goes away.”

“Witnesses recant. Lawyers get busy. These things happen.

“Like Britt”

He set down the glass.

“I told you,” he said gently. Things happen in prison.”

“They do.” I stacked the statements neatly. “May I file these, sir? The safe?”

He nodded. Waved his hand. He’d let me open his safe a hundred times. The combination was his

mother’s birthday. I’d known it since year four.

I knelt in front of it. I spun the dial. I opened the door.

Inside were eight years of ledgers, six account books, the property deeds for a cabin in New Hampshire, a folder marked ASHFORD with every check Grant had ever written him, and a Colt .45 that Hollis kept for reasons he’d never explained.

I took the ledgers out. I took the ASHFORD folder out. I put them in the accordion file I’d brought for

exactly this purpose, the one that said Q3 STATEMENTS on the tab.

And in their place, on the top shelf of Curtis Hollis’s safe, I set the Bible.

His Bible. The one he’d given me. Front cover open to the inscription: Salvation lies within. -C.H.

I closed the door. I spun the dial.

“All filed, sir.”

“Good girl.”

He walked me to the door. His hand on my shoulder again. At the threshold he stopped and looked at me

with what I think, God help me, was real affection.

“Get some sleep, Elena. Tomorrow’s going to be a difficult day for all of us.”

“Yes, sir.”

I walked down the administrative corridor with eight years of evidence under my arm and my heart trying to break my ribs.

Bergen was at the B-block gate. He looked at the accordion file. He looked at me.

Then he held out his hand.

I gave it to him.

“There’s a stamped envelope in the front pocket,” I said. “The address is already on it. It needs to be in a

mailbox outside these walls before midnight.”

He tucked the file under his arm like laundry.

“I’m sorry about the girl,” he said. It was the only time he ever mentioned Britt.

Then he was gone, and I walked into my cell, and Dee whispered through the vent, “Well?”

I lay down on my bunk and stared at the ceiling and did not answer, because in that moment I could not have made my voice work.

Eleven hours until Friday.

Outside, somewhere over the Atlantic, it began to thunder.