“I think you need to give this some time, if you're willing to, and see how it shakes out. There's no question that Seth has made a shattering mistake here. Only you know if you can forgive him, and want to stay with him. Pray about it, Sarah,” she urged her. “The answers will come as things unfold. It will come clear to you, maybe sooner than you think.” Or sooner even than she wanted. Maggie reminded herself that often when she prayed for clarity in a situation, the answers were blunter and more obvious than she wanted, particularly if she didn't like them. But she didn't say that to Sarah.

“He says he'll need me at the trial,” Sarah said grimly. “I'll be there for him. I feel like I owe him that. But it's going to be so awful. He's going to look like a total criminal in the press,” which in fact he was, they both knew. “This is so humiliating.”

“Don't let pride make this decision for you, Sarah,” Maggie warned her. “Make it with love. If you do, it will bless everyone. That's really what you want here. The right answer, the right decision, the right future for you and your children, whether or not that includes Seth. He'll always have his children, he's their father, wherever he winds up in all this. The question is if he'll have you. And most important, if you want him.”

“I don't know. I don't know who ‘him’ is. I feel like I was in love with an illusion for the last six years. I have no idea who he really is. He's the last man on the planet I would have expected to commit fraud.”

“You never know,” Maggie said as they looked out at the bay. “People do strange things. Even people we think we know and love. I'm going to pray for you,” she reassured her. “And you pray too, if you can. Give it to God. Let Him try to help you figure it out.” Sarah nodded, and turned to her with a small smile.

“Thank you. I knew it would help if I talked to you. I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I feel better. I was freaking out when I came to see you.”

“Come and see me anytime, or call me. I'll be here for a while.” There was still a lot for her to do for all the people who had been displaced in the earthquake and would be living in the Presidio for many months. It was a fertile field of activity for her, and fit well with her mission as a nun. She brought love, peace, and comfort to all she touched. “Be merciful” were her final words of advice to Sarah. “Mercy is an important thing in life. That doesn't mean you have to stay with him, or give up your own life for him. But you do have to be merciful and kind to him and yourself, once you make your decision, whatever it is in the end. Love doesn't mean you have to stay with him, it only means you have to be compassionate. That's where the grace comes in. You'll know it when you're there.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said as she hugged her, as they stood outside the field hospital again. “I'll stay in touch.”

“I'll be praying for you,” Maggie reassured her, and waved with a loving smile as Sarah drove away. The time they had spent together had been just what Sarah needed.

She drove back down Marina Boulevard in Parmani's car, and south up the hill on Divisadero. She pulled up just as the two FBI agents left, and she was grateful not to have been there. She waited until they drove away, and then went in. Henry was summing things up with Seth. She waited until he had left too, and then walked into Seth's office.

“Where were you?” he asked, looking utterly exhausted.

“I needed to get some air. How was it?”

“Pretty bad,” he said solemnly. “They didn't pull any punches. They're asking for an indictment next week. This is going to be tough, Sarah. It would have been nice if you'd stuck around today.” His eyes were full of reproach. She had never seen him this needy. She remembered what Maggie had said, and tried to feel compassion for him. Whatever he had done to her indirectly, he was in a hell of a mess, and she felt sorry for him, more so than she had before she went to see Maggie that day.

“Did the FBI want to see me?” she asked, looking worried.

“No. You have nothing to do with this. I told them you knew nothing about it. You don't work for me. And they can't force you to testify against me anyway, you're my wife.” Sarah looked reassured by what he said. “I just wanted you here for me.”

“I'm here, Seth.” For now at least. It was the best she could do.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, and then she left the room, and went upstairs to see her children. He didn't say anything more to her, and as soon as she walked out, he put his face in his hands and dissolved in tears.





Chapter 12




For the next ten days, Seth's life continued to unravel. His case was presented to the grand jury by the federal prosecutor, and they granted the indictment. Two days later federal agents came to arrest him. He was informed of his rights, taken to the federal courthouse, photographed, formally charged, and booked. He spent the night in jail, until bail was set by a judge the next morning.

The funds he had fraudulently deposited in the bank were returned to New York, by a court order, to cover Sully's investors. So Sully's investors had suffered no loss, but Seth's had been shown books that looked sixty million dollars fatter than they really were. And they had invested in his hedge fund accordingly, as a result of Seth's fraudulent representations to them. The nature and severity of Seth's crime caused the judge to set his bail at ten million dollars. He had to pay one million to the bail bondsman to be released on bail. That wiped out all the cash they had on hand. He was assessed as not being a flight risk, and he was eligible for bail because there had been no loss of life or physical violence involved. What he had done had been far subtler than that. They had no choice except to put their house up as bail. It was worth about fifteen million, and the night he got out of jail, he told Sarah they had to sell the house. The bail bondsman could keep ten million of it as collateral, and the other five he needed to pay his attorneys. Henry had already told him that their fee would probably be in the vicinity of three million dollars through trial. It was a complicated case. He told Sarah they had to sell the house in Tahoe too. They needed to sell as much as they could. The only good news was that they owned the house on Divisadero free and clear. There was a mortgage on Tahoe that was going to eat into their profit, but they could use the difference for his defense and related expenses.

“I'll sell my jewelry too,” she said, looking wooden. She didn't care about the jewelry, but was crushed to lose their home.

“We can rent an apartment.” He had already given up his plane. It wasn't fully paid for yet, and he had taken a loss. His hedge fund was closed. There would be no income coming in, but a lot of money going out to defend him. His sixty-million-dollar caper was liable to cost them everything they had. In addition to whatever prison sentence they gave him, if he was convicted, there would be staggering fines. And then lawsuits from his investors would wipe him out. They were becoming paupers overnight.

“I'll get my own apartment,” Sarah said quietly. She had made the decision the night before, when he was in jail. And Maggie had been right. She didn't know what else she was going to do, but it had become clear to Sarah that she didn't want to live with him right now. They might get back together later, but for now, she wanted to get an apartment for her and the children, and she was going to get a job.

“You're moving out?” Seth looked stunned. “How will that look to the FBI?” It was all he cared about right now.

“We're both moving out, as it so happens. And it'll look like you made a hell of a mistake, I'm shaken up, and we're taking a break.” All of which was true. She wasn't filing for divorce, she just wanted space. She couldn't stand being part of the process of the unraveling of their lives, because he had chosen to be a con instead of an honest man. She had been praying a lot since seeing Maggie, and she felt comfortable about what she was doing. Sad, but it felt right, just as Maggie had said it would, she knew. One step at a time.

Sarah called the real estate brokers the next day, and put the house on the market. She called the bail bondsman to tell him what they were doing, so he didn't think there was something sneaky going on. He had the deed to the house anyway. He explained to her that he had a right to approve the sale, hang on to his ten million dollars, and anything over and above that was theirs. He thanked her for the call, and didn't say it, but he felt sorry for her. He thought her husband was a jerk. Even when he'd met with him in jail, Seth was pompous and full of himself. The bail bondsman had seen others like him before. They were always run by their egos, and wound up screwing over their families and wives. He wished her good luck with the sale.

After that, she spent her days calling people she knew in the city and Silicon Valley, looking for a job. She wrote up a ré sumé, which gave the details of her MBA program at Stanford, and her work on Wall Street in an investment banking firm. She was willing to take anything—trader, analyst. She was willing to get a stockbroker's license, or work in a bank. She had the credentials and the brains, all she needed was the job. And meanwhile, out of both curiosity and real interest, potential buyers were crawling all over their house.

Seth got himself a penthouse in what was referred to as the Heartbreak Hotel on Broadway. It was a modern apartment building, full of small, expensive furnished apartments, heavily populated by men who had just broken up with their wives. Sarah got a small cozy flat in a Victorian on Clay Street. It had two bedrooms, one for her, and one for the children. It had parking space for one car, and a tiny garden. Rents had plummeted since the earthquake, and she got it at a good price, and it would be hers on the first of June.