“And that is?”
“Sorry. I’m going about this badly. Remember what I said about something happening that I recognized as an opportunity?”
“Uh-huh. You said that’s when you decided to get away and start over.”
“Right. What happened is that I bought a lottery ticket. Not then, but weeks earlier, right after my divorce. Five chances on Powerball. I was feeling, I don’t know, lucky, I suppose. Looking at the rest of my life as a second chance. I spent twenty bucks, stuffed the ticket in my purse, and forgot about it. I should mention that Jay is the gambler. Lotto numbers. Atlantic City. Football pools. Twice a year jaunts to Vegas, most everything comped. Inevergambled. Never had the urge, except for that once. I did it on a whim, and I’ve never done it since.”
“This story seems to be heading for a win. You hit some of the numbers?”
Ramsey mouth curved in a slim smile. “I did, actually. I found the ticket all those weeks later when I was cleaning out that purse. I almost pitched it, but something stayed my hand. I think it might have been the Force.” Sullivan’s grin warmed her as much as the drink had, and it was a lot easier on her stomach. “I went to the website, looked up the numbers for the day of the purchase, and then spent the next twenty minutes trying to decide where to hide the ticket so it would be safe.”
“You hit? Three? Four numbers?”
She held up one hand and splayed all her fingers.
“Five?” he asked, dark eyebrows climbing. “You hit five numbers?” While he was considering what her payday might have been, she lifted her other hand and held up the index finger.
“Six? You hit five numbersandthe Powerball?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Jeez. And Jay only learned this recently?”
“That’s what he said. Maryland allows lottery winners to retain their privacy. My windfall is not part of the public record. I learned that when I took my ticket to a financial advisor before I had my lawyer turn it in to the lottery commission. The kind of money I won certainly presented an opportunity, but being able to remain anonymous was the cherry on the sundae. That’s when my plan began to take shape.”
“It’s not important now, except that I’m curious. How did Jay learn about the money?”
“I didn’t ask him. I was too angry by then. Venturing a guess, I’d say he stumbled on it when he was hacking information about me. There’s a record of the win, just not a public one. I have the same social security number so Jay could have found out a lot by using it online. I considered trying to change it, but I was tired by then with all the red tape, and I wanted to avoid the hassle and get out. From the FAQs on the administration’s website, it’s rarely approved anyway.”
“Makes sense. What are you going to do about Jay? How much is he asking for?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
“You mentioned that he’s a gambler. Does his request have something to do with that?”
“I imagine so. He said he was in deep. That suggests serious gaming to me. Maybe Vegas money. He’s never run afoul of the casinos, but he’s played in private games that involve big buy-ins and bigger payouts.”
“If you win.”
Ramsey nodded. “If you win,” she repeated quietly.
“Did you know about the gambling when you married him?”
“Not the extent of it, no. I told you we met in a bar hookup. He was playing Keno. I was watching him, mostly because I didn’t understand the game. He explained it, let me pick some numbers, and we got to talking. He played the daily numbers and participated in the office football pool with his geek colleagues. He didn’t gamble online, which would have been a red flag for me. I thought what he was doing was essentially harmless. He made good money in IT and if he was ever in over his head before we were married, he didn’t mention it.”
“What about during your marriage? You said he didn’t allow you access to the accounts.”
“Right. There was that.” Heaving a sigh, she picked up her glass and finished it off.
“Another?”
“Apparently I’m staying here, so yes.”
Sullivan got up and made the second Rusty Nail with marginally more Drambuie to give it a slightly sweeter edge and smooth the Scotch. He placed the glass in front of her and then sat. “When did you recognize that he had a problem?”
“When he failed to give me my allowance three weeks in a row. It had never happened before and when I asked him about it, he claimed a higher than usual heating bill the first time. He didn’t realize that I knew we were on the budget plan. Our bill didn’t fluctuate. The next week it was another excuse, something about data charges on our phone plan. My fault, he said. I don’t remember what he offered up as a reason that third week, but by then, I was doing some investigating on my own. He kept meticulous records, all of it on an Excel spreadsheet he designed for just that purpose. We each had a laptop. He had my password; I didn’t have his. I figured it out, though. It wasn’t hard because he never suspected I would dare open his laptop, let alone get into it.
“I saw everything.Everything. His portfolio. The retirement account. Bills. Bank statements. Expenses. Income. What caught my attention were the tabs dedicated to profit and loss. That was how he tracked his winnings. He accounted for every lottery ticket he purchased to offset the winners with the losers. I used to complain that he worked too hard, bringing his work home the way he often did. When I saw the spreadsheet, I finally realized what he had been doing when he was bent over the MacBook.”
