PART 1
The Code That No Longer Worked
Three days after I brought my newborn daughter home from the hospital, my husband locked me out of the house I had owned for nearly a decade.
At first, I thought I was making a mistake.
I stood beneath the covered entrance of my stone house outside Asheville, North Carolina, with cold November rain blowing across the porch and my daughter, Maisie, asleep against my chest. I entered the six-digit code again, slowly this time, pressing each number with a finger that still trembled from exhaustion.
The keypad flashed red.
Incorrect.
I tried once more.
Incorrect.
Behind the tall windows, lamps glowed over the foyer I had designed myself. I could see the walnut console table, the old brass mirror I had found in Charleston, even the pale blue throw blanket folded over the living room sofa.
Everything looked exactly as I had left it.
Except I could not get inside.
I called my husband, Colin Prescott, six times before he finally answered. Music drifted behind him, followed by the unmistakable sound of his mother laughing.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Palm Beach.”
I closed my eyes.
“You changed the code.”
There was a pause, brief enough that another person might have missed it.
“I changed a few household settings.”
“Colin, I’m standing outside with Maisie.”
“Then go to your sister’s for the night.”
For several seconds, the rain was the only thing I could hear.
I had purchased the property at thirty-one, five years before meeting Colin, after selling my interest in the regional pharmacy-distribution company I had built with two college friends. I had paid off the remaining loan the previous spring. Colin’s name had never been added to the title.
Yet he spoke as if I were asking permission to enter his home.
“Open the door remotely.”
His voice hardened.
“You’ve been making everyone uncomfortable for months, Audrey. Mom thinks you need space, and honestly, so do I.”
“Your mother thinks I need space from my own house?”
He sighed.
“This is exactly what I mean. You’re emotional. We’ll talk when I get back.”
Then he ended the call.
I stared at the screen until another gust of rain struck the porch.
My next call was to my attorney.
Rachel Monroe had represented me since my company’s first major acquisition, and she knew my finances better than anyone in my family.
“Audrey?” she answered. “Is the baby all right?”
I looked down at Maisie, barely seven pounds beneath a cream-colored blanket.
“The baby is fine. Colin changed the entry code and left for Florida with his mother.”
Silence.
Then Rachel’s voice became very precise.
“The property is still solely yours?”
“Yes.”
“No transfer after the wedding?”
“None.”
“And the prenup remains unchanged?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“What do you want me to do?”
I looked through the glass at the staircase where Colin’s mother, Marjorie, had recently replaced three of my landscape photographs with Prescott family portraits without asking.
May you like
Something inside me settled.
“Sell it.”
