Chapter 3 - THE CAMERA THADDIUS FORGOT ABOUT
I did not sleep that night.
Dorothia did not go home.
Under any other circumstances, the idea of spending the night in the same house with my mother-in-law would have felt like a punishment designed by an inventive judge.
But at two in the morning, we sat opposite each other at my kitchen island with two untouched cups of tea between us, both realizing we had been financing the same man from opposite directions.
“Explain matching,” I said.
Dorothia stared at the bank statement.
Her fingers trembled.
“When Thaddius told me he started consulting, he said he needed help building reserves.”
“How much help?”
“I agreed to match his monthly business deposits.”
My stomach tightened.
“Dollar for dollar?”
“Up to two thousand.”
“And he told you the deposits were business income.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the pattern.
Every month:
I transferred Thaddius $1,500.
Usually on the first.
Within seventy-two hours, he transferred exactly $1,500 into Mercer Strategic Holdings.
Then Dorothia transferred $1,500 into the same account as a “family business match.”
“What happened to the three thousand after that?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll find out.”
Dorothia closed her eyes.
“Naomi.”
“What?”
“I gave him more.”
Of course.
“How much?”
She looked ashamed.
“Seventy-five thousand two years ago.”
“For what?”
“Marketing expansion.”
“There was no expansion.”
“I know that now.”
“How did you pay?”
“Wire.”
“From your personal account?”
“Yes.”
“Any agreement?”
“He gave me a promissory note.”
“Did a lawyer prepare it?”
“He said you did.”
I stared.
“I never saw it.”
Dorothia’s face collapsed further.
“He told me you handled his business paperwork because you were the financial one.”
I pushed back from the counter.
“Get the note.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
It was almost three in the morning.
I did not care.
Dorothia drove fifteen minutes to her condo and returned with a leather folder.
The promissory note had my name at the bottom.
Not as borrower.
As witness.
Naomi Mercer, CPA
I stared.
“I didn’t sign this.”
Dorothia sat down hard.
The signature looked enough like mine to fool someone who wanted to believe it.
And Dorothia had wanted to.
“He forged you.”
“Yes.”
“I showed this to my accountant.”
“He didn’t verify?”
“Why would he?”
She whispered.
“You were my daughter-in-law.”
There it was again.
Trust transferred through proximity.
Thaddius had built his lies using the credibility of the women around him.
My salary.
My professional designation.
Dorothia’s money.
His mother’s faith.
By sunrise, I had created a spreadsheet.
That was what I did when terrified.
Other people cried.
I organized columns.
Three years of allowance transfers.
Three years of matching funds.
Dorothia’s seventy-five-thousand-dollar loan.
Two smaller transfers she had forgotten.
Ten thousand for “equipment.”
Eight thousand for “licensing.”
There was no equipment.
I checked Illinois corporate records.
Mercer Strategic Holdings existed.
Registered eighteen months earlier, not three years.
Thaddius had claimed he had been consulting longer than the company legally existed.
Registered agent:
Trent Mercer.
His cousin.
That name annoyed me immediately.
Trent had attended every Thanksgiving, eaten my food, borrowed my SUV twice, and spent years telling Thaddius he was “too talented to work for other people.”
I searched the address.
A mailbox store.
No office.
No employees.
No professional website.
No payroll.
Nothing.
Dorothia stared at the screen.
“So what was he doing all day?”
I almost laughed.
The painful kind.
“I don’t know.”
That was one of the most humiliating truths in a marriage.
Not discovering betrayal.
Discovering how little you knew about the person sleeping beside you.
At eight, Sarah Levin arrived.
Sarah had been my divorce-attorney recommendation from a colleague two years earlier.
I never called.
Because I was not ready then.
I called now.
She entered the kitchen with a legal pad and the expression of a woman who had seen enough bad marriages not to waste time pretending surprise.
“You were assaulted.”
“Yes.”
“Police report?”
“Yes.”
“Video?”
“Yes.”
“House?”
“Mine before marriage.”
“Children?”
“No.”
That answer still hurt.
Less than before.
“Joint assets?”
“Checking. Some retirement contributions. Two cars.”
“Debt?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
“I don’t know anymore.”
Sarah nodded.
“Good answer.”
Dorothia looked at me.
“How is that good?”
“Because people who think they know all the debt often haven’t looked at their credit reports yet.”
That sentence made my stomach drop.
We pulled all three major credit reports.
Mortgage.
Normal.
Car loan.
Normal.
Credit cards.
Mostly normal.
Then:
MIDWEST COMMUNITY BANK – BUSINESS CREDIT LINE – $118,400.
I froze.
Sarah leaned closer.
“Do you know that?”
“No.”
“Opened when?”
Fourteen months earlier.
Borrower:
Mercer Strategic Holdings.
Personal guarantors:
Thaddius Mercer.
Naomi Mercer.
“No.”
My voice disappeared.
“I did not guarantee this.”
Sarah’s face hardened.
“Signature?”
Electronic.
IP address tied to our home.
Email authorization from an address containing my name.
Not my actual email.
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
He created a fake email account to impersonate me.
Dorothia covered her mouth.
Sarah continued scrolling.
The line was secured partly by “household income documentation.”
My pay stubs.
My tax returns.
My employment verification.
Documents Thaddius could access because we were married.
I felt violated in a way I had not expected.
He had not only taken money.
He had taken the identity I spent twenty years building.
My CPA license.
My income.
My credit.
My reliability.
Things he mocked as proof I cared too much about work.
He used them the moment they became useful to him.
“How much is outstanding?”
I asked.
“Almost all of it.”
“Where did it go?”
“We subpoena.”
“I want to know now.”
Sarah looked at me.
“Naomi.”
“I need to know.”
She understood.
We reviewed statements available through my credit report disclosure.
Cash advances.
Transfers.
A brokerage platform.
A sports-betting company registered in New Jersey.
Luxury retailer.
Travel.
Then one recurring payment:
HARBOR VIEW RESIDENCES — $2,850.
I stared.
Dorothia whispered:
“What is that?”
Sarah searched.
Apartment complex downtown.
Luxury.
One-bedroom units around that exact rent.
My husband had an apartment.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
Maybe office?
No.
Mercer Strategic had no lease listed there.
Thaddius had paid monthly residential rent for almost a year.
With a business line I unknowingly guaranteed.
Dorothia stared at me.
“I’m sorry.”
I held up one hand.
Not now.
I could not absorb anyone’s apology yet.
Sarah made calls.
Bank fraud unit.
Credit freezes.
Identity theft report.
Emergency protective order.
Preservation notices for all cloud recordings.
That camera—the one Thaddius forgot about—became more useful than any of us expected.
Because while reviewing the footage around the assault, Officer Bennett noticed something unrelated.
Three weeks earlier, at 1:12 in the afternoon, Thaddius entered the living room while I was at work.
Trent followed him.
They sat at the coffee table.
Exactly where the glass had shattered.
Thaddius placed papers in front of his cousin.
The camera’s microphone captured everything.
Trent laughed.
“You sure she won’t notice?”
Thaddius answered:
“She pays everything on autopilot.”
My blood turned cold.
Trent:
“What about the bank?”
Thaddius:
“They have her taxes.”
Then:
“She’s got an eight-hundred credit score. We’ll be fine.”
I stopped the video.
Dorothia began crying again.
Sarah did not.
“Keep going.”
I pressed play.
Trent:
“You need the second draw before the Vale meeting.”
Thaddius:
“I know.”
“Then get her signature.”
“I already have the template.”
My hand began shaking.
Signature template.
Sarah immediately asked police to preserve the full file.
The video continued.
Trent asked:
“And the apartment?”
Thaddius lowered his voice.
“Camille thinks I’m finalizing the divorce.”
Dorothia made a broken sound.
There it was.
The woman.
Of course.
Her name was Camille.
Trent laughed.
“Naomi know?”
Thaddius answered:
“Naomi knows what I tell her.”
I turned off the video.
No one spoke.
The slap from the night before suddenly felt like the smallest betrayal in the room.
Not because violence was small.
Because the violence had finally opened a door behind which years of other violations were standing patiently.
Dorothia stared toward the living room.
“I thought he was depressed.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“I thought losing his job broke him.”
She cried quietly.
“He told me you resented him because you were ambitious and he was struggling.”
My voice came out empty.
“He told me you thought I was lazy.”
“He told me you called me controlling.”
“I did.”
She looked ashamed.
“Sometimes.”
I almost smiled.
At least that was honest.
Sarah closed the laptop.
“We need to make one thing clear.”
Both of us looked at her.
“Thaddius will probably be released today.”
My body tightened.
“Protective order?”
“We request it immediately.”
“House?”
“His access can be restricted.”
“Financial accounts?”
“Separate now.”
I nodded.
Sarah continued:
“He is likely to tell everyone Naomi is unstable.”
Dorothia’s expression hardened.
“He already has.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She wiped her face.
“For years.”
Of course.
“He told the family your work made you anxious.”
Another.
“That you obsess over money.”
Another.
“That fertility treatments made you emotional.”
My throat tightened.
We had never undergone fertility treatment, but we had discussed trying for a baby and postponed because Thaddius said finances were unstable. Interesting. Wait original story didn't mention infertility. Avoid introducing. Better keep.
Dorothia corrected:
“That your long hours made you difficult.”
Good.
“He told us he stayed because he loved you.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
Sarah looked concerned.
“I’m fine.”
No.
I wasn’t.
But I was clearer.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I answered because apparently the morning had already lost all reasonable boundaries.
A woman spoke.
“Is this Naomi?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Camille Foster.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“I think we’re married to the same man.”
I closed my eyes.
Then she corrected herself.
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“I think you’re married to him.”
May you like
And just like that, Thaddius’s secret apartment stopped being a suspicion.
It became another woman’s life.
