Audrey looked around the garden.
She saw the flowers she had selected, the house she had designed, the friends who had celebrated her marriage, and the business associates Matthew had spent years impressing.
Then she looked at the woman Corrine had kissed on the cheek without hesitation.
“I considered that for three months,” Audrey said.
“That’s why I know exactly who created the humiliation.”
Brenda moved closer to her.
Matthew rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“Can everyone just give us a minute?”
No one moved.
He had invited them to watch him play devoted husband.
Now he wanted privacy because the performance had changed.
Audrey reached into the box again.
The second folder was thicker.
Diana Finch stepped away from the back table.
She was a small, composed woman with silver threaded through her dark hair.
She had attended the shower without fanfare, introduced simply as someone Audrey knew professionally.
Matthew knew her reputation because people in his industry knew what happened when Diana began asking questions.
“What did you hire her for?” he asked.
“I wanted to know whether your lies stopped at hotel rooms.”
His expression hardened.
“You investigated me?”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of the answer seemed to offend him more than an accusation would have.
Diana did not address the crowd.
She spoke to Matthew.
“Mrs.
Shaw asked me to review records to which she had lawful access as a spouse and business owner.
I traced several expenditures associated with trips you described to her as company travel.”
One of Matthew’s investors shifted forward in his chair.
Matthew noticed.
“Careful,” he said to Diana.
“I am being careful.”
Audrey opened the folder and removed a small stack of copied statements.
The amounts were not spectacular individually.
That was what had made them easy to hide.
Hotel charges.
Airfare upgrades.
Restaurant bills for two.
Car services.
Payments connected to the apartment building Mr.
Walsh had photographed.
Some had come from personal accounts Matthew shared with Audrey.
Others had been submitted among expenses attached to his development business.
Diana had organized them by date.
The pattern stretched back much farther than Audrey had expected.
Matthew saw the first page and stopped arguing about the photographs.
“You had no right to go through my company records.”
An older man near the champagne table spoke before Diana could answer.
“Which company records?”
Matthew turned.
The man was one of the investors Matthew had been entertaining twenty minutes earlier.
“Nothing,” Matthew said.
“This is a marital dispute.”
“You just said company records.”
“Because she’s trying to make this look like something it isn’t.”
The investor’s expression had changed from discomfort to attention.
