Maya messaged Salma at ten in the morning: *I'd like thirty minutes about a transaction connected to unit 4C. I won't ask about your private life. I only want records tied to money from an account that was also mine.*
Salma replied twelve minutes later. They met at the estate café in full view of other people.
Before Maya could begin, Salma said, “Omar told me you were already separated before we became close.”
“When did you become close?” Maya asked.
Salma's mouth tightened. “That's exactly how this goes wrong.”
Maya felt heat rise into her face. She had promised to ask about money and her first question had reached for betrayal. “You're right. Let me start again. Did funds from the old joint account pay for work in 4C?”
Salma placed a brown envelope on the table. She had brought one renovation invoice and the date of her first tenancy agreement. Omar, she said, had described the divorce as completed months earlier than its actual date.
“I didn't know the source of his money,” Salma said. “He called the advance his.”
The invoice from Kito Renovations carried the note `advance from O.` On the reverse, the payment reference showed the last digits of the source account.
Maya knew them instantly.
She did not accuse Salma. Instead she showed one matching line from her own statement. Salma refused to let the document become a confession. “This doesn't prove I knew where the money came from.”
“I know.”
That answer changed the room. Salma allowed Maya to note the tenancy date and explained that the 4C deposit had not been a single payment. There had been an advance, renovation installments and another corporate contribution. Maya labeled anything beyond the invoice `unverified`.
“Would you remove a claim if the records showed you approved it?” Salma asked.
“Yes.”
“Even if it ruined the story you have about him?”
“My story isn't the claim. The record is.”
Maya had Salma note when and how she had received the invoice, then scanned the copy in front of her and returned the original. They did not become friends. They did not discuss intimacy again. They agreed on a narrow channel: financial records only.
When the bill came, each insisted on paying her own coffee. Maya almost laughed. “At least the source of funds is clear here.”
Salma's expression softened for the first time.
In the parking lot Maya stared at the account digits again. The invoice had transformed a vague suspicion into a question she could take to the bank. Salma might have been given a false timeline. Maya might have signed documents she did not remember. Omar might have explanations for some payments.
None of that changed the most concrete fact in her hand.
Salma then showed Maya the invoice's issue date and explained that she had received the document after asking Omar for proof that the contractor had been paid. Maya noted that detail because it established provenance: Salma had not created the invoice for this meeting. Maya sent the scan to herself while Salma watched, named the file by date and document number, and returned the paper immediately. They also wrote a short note of what Salma was and was not confirming. She was confirming the invoice she possessed and the timeline Omar had given her; she was not confirming where every payment came from or what Maya had understood during the marriage. That distinction kept their first conversation from becoming an alliance built on shared anger.
The 4C invoice had been paid from the savings account Maya and Omar shared.