The first punch landed clean enough to make my wife smile

calculators.

“I need a favor,” I said.

“That phrase from you usually ends badly.”

“I think my wife and her boyfriend are planning something involving my house.”

“How romantic.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

I explained the call.

Rebecca stopped joking.

“Send me everything.”

“There’s more.”

I told her Derek owned a gym.

She asked for the company name.

I gave it to her.

Then she said something strange.

“Don’t sign anything.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“No. Cole. Anything. Not a waiver. Not a gym release. Nothing.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know yet.”

That sentence stuck with me.

By Thursday morning, Rebecca called again.

“Your wife transferred seventy-two thousand dollars out of the joint savings account eight months ago.”

I sat up in the motel bed.

“What?”

“Three transfers. Twenty-four thousand each.”

I opened my banking app.

I almost never checked that account.

My commissions went into another account used for