We spoke for almost an hour. Natalie told me she and Grant had been married twelve years and had a teenage son who believed his father traveled constantly because the job required it. She said Grant could be charming, generous, and persuasive, which made it easy for people to accept explanations he delivered confidently. I told her that Celeste had spent a year describing Grant as the manager who finally appreciated her ability. Neither of us had to finish the thought that followed. We understood what it felt like to learn you'd been living beside a version of events constructed by someone you trusted.
Before hanging up, Natalie asked a question I didn't expect. "Did your wife ever buy Grant a watch?" I gripped the phone harder. She said a silver watch had arrived at their house six weeks earlier, and Grant claimed it was a gift from a grateful client. Natalie had found a warranty card inside the box, with a woman's name on the customer information. She didn't read the name immediately, allowing me to answer if I knew anything.
I told her Celeste had admired a silver watch Grant wore at a company barbecue, but I didn't know whether he'd owned more than one. Natalie said the watch in the box was new and the warranty listed Celeste Marie Dunn. She described the purchase date, which lined up closely with one of the unexplained transfers from our savings account. I asked what the listed price was. "Two thousand eight hundred dollars," she said, and for a moment I couldn't speak.
The number was so precise it felt like somebody had reached inside my head and turned a dial. Four thousand for the resort and another two thousand eight hundred for the watch: the two amounts accounted for the withdrawals I'd been trying to explain. I still needed documentation tying the bank transfer to the purchase before claiming that as a proved fact, but the pattern was no longer vague. I thought about the nights I'd worked late to increase our down payment. I imagined the small warranty card with my wife's name on it sitting beside a gift another man had brought home to his family as though it belonged there.
"Are you all right?" Natalie asked. I looked down at the notebook I'd been writing in and found that my pen had made a dark spot where I'd pressed too hard. "I don't know," I said. It was the first completely honest answer I'd given to that question in days. Natalie said she didn't know either, and something about hearing it from a stranger made the room feel less empty.
We agreed to provide any relevant documents through our lawyers or the company's formal process, not to post accusations online or pressure anyone into a public confession. Natalie said she intended to contact Westbridge's compliance department on Monday morning and to consult her own attorney about her marriage. I told her those decisions were hers and that I would cooperate with legitimate requests for records I had the right to share. Before ending the call, she thanked me for listening. I thanked her for telling me what she knew.