By evening he was at my kitchen table with a glowing laptop open, glasses sliding halfway down his nose, fingers moving over the keyboard so fast they seemed to blur. He muttered to himself while he worked, half detective, half irritated engineer.
“Ethan thinks he’s clever,” he said. “But he’s careless. Always has been. He uses the same variations on passwords, stores recovery codes in stupid places, and never clears synced devices because he assumes nobody else is paying attention.”
A sharp laugh escaped me. “That sounds familiar.”
“Oh, I’m sure it does.”
I made coffee neither of us really needed. The house was dark outside the kitchen windows, and the entire scene would have been surreal if not for the grounding normalcy of David swearing softly at software. He wasn’t hacking a bank. He was doing what smart people do when arrogant people leave doors open because they think nobody will try the handle.
Then his whole face lit.
“Jackpot,” he said.
He turned the screen toward me.
Messages scrolled there in tight blue-and-white columns—Facebook chats, old direct messages, backups from synced browser sessions, more than a year of conversation between Ethan and Rebecca preserved in their own smug words.
At first I only registered the volume. Then the content hit.
She’s so stupid. Been siphoning money from her grocery account for months. Almost saved enough for our dream wedding, babe. Can’t wait to see her face when we’re gone.
My stomach turned so sharply I had to grip the edge of the table.
David scrolled.
You think she’ll notice the missing cash?
Nah, Ethan had written. Clara’s too boring to check.
Another message.
She’s basically funding our escape and doesn’t even know it. That’s kind of hilarious.
Another.
When this blows up, play victim. Your mom will back you. Mine too if I make it sound like she was emotionally abusive.
There were dozens like that. More. Discussions about hotel rooms, fake work dinners, my routines, what time I usually grocery-shopped, which card I used most for household expenses, how Ethan could skim cash back in small amounts from stores I wouldn’t question.
I did not cry.