Chapter 4 - WHAT WAS ON THE USB
I did not plug the USB into my laptop.
Neither did Tommy.
The next morning, I handed it to my attorney.
Her name was Lauren Price, and she had represented me personally since my father died.
She looked at me across her office.
“Do you know whether this belongs to Joe?”
“No.”
“Did Tommy take it?”
“Yes.”
Her expression tightened.
“We need to be careful.”
“I know.”
“Do not access anything yourself.”
“I won’t.”
Joe had already filed for divorce.
The papers he placed in front of me were real.
What he had tried to force me to sign at the gala was not the divorce petition itself.
It was a proposed settlement package.
That distinction mattered.
The divorce could proceed without my signature.
The settlement could not.
Lauren arranged for the USB to be preserved and reviewed appropriately once its relevance and ownership could be addressed through the case.
Joe’s attorneys initially demanded its return.
Then abruptly stopped demanding anything.
That was our first clue.
The contents eventually became part of broader financial discovery.
The drive contained backup files.
Not photographs of Joe and Tracy.
No romantic videos.
Nothing salacious.
It was worse.
Spreadsheets.
PDF exports.
Copies of corporate emails.
Notes.
And a directory associated with the second phone.
Joe had been using the second device to communicate about financial matters he did not want appearing on his normal company or family accounts.
The messages involved Tracy.
But they also involved a company called Elm Harbor Advisory.
I knew that name.
Whitmore & Lane had paid Elm Harbor substantial consulting fees during the previous year.
Tracy had told me it was an outside strategy firm.
It was.
Technically.
What I did not know was that Tracy controlled it through another entity.
And Joe had approved several of those payments.
Lauren asked me:
“Did you know Tracy had an ownership interest?”
“No.”
“Did the company?”
“I don’t know.”
The next question hurt more.
“Did Joe?”
The USB answered that.
Yes.
He knew.
One message from him to Tracy said:
Keep Elm Harbor separate from you until Natalie signs. After the settlement, it won’t matter.
Another:
The second account needs to stay quiet through the gala.
Second account.
Different story.
Same phrase.
There was also a draft settlement memo in which Joe proposed that I waive any claim related to undisclosed business reimbursements, intercompany payments, and certain marital asset transfers occurring before our “agreed date of separation.”
Agreed date.
We had never agreed to one.
Joe had chosen a date eight months earlier.
Conveniently, it was before several questionable transfers began.
Lauren read it twice.
Then looked at me.
“He wasn’t just trying to leave you.”
I already knew.
“He was trying to get me to sign away the right to ask what he did before he left.”
“Yes.”
May you like
The birthday gala had not been only public cruelty.
It had been a deadline.
