Chapter 2
Melissa grabbed my wrist before I could unlock my phone.
“Don’t.”
I looked down at her hand.
Then at her face.
“Let go.”
She released me.
Sophie had started crying quietly.
That immediately changed my priority.
I knelt beside her.
“Sweetheart, none of this is your fault.”
“I’m sorry I told.”
My heart cracked.
“Never apologize for telling me the truth.”
Melissa turned away.
I picked Sophie up even though she was getting too big for it.
For that moment, she felt like my little girl again.
I carried her upstairs.
We sat on the edge of her bed beneath the paper stars she had taped to her ceiling.
“Did Mommy take other money from you?”
Sophie stared at her hands.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
“She said grown-ups sometimes borrow children’s money.”
My stomach turned.
“When did she say that?”
“When I asked about my piggy bank.”
I went still.
Sophie had a ceramic piggy bank my father bought her before he died.
We called it Captain Pig.
She had been putting birthday money, tooth-fairy dollars, and small gifts inside for years.
“Where’s Captain Pig?”
Sophie pointed toward her bookshelf.
The pig was there.
I lifted it.
Too light.
There should have been hundreds inside.
I removed the rubber stopper.
Empty.
I closed my eyes.
“Mommy said she put it somewhere safer.”
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“How long?”
She shrugged.
“Before school started.”
Months.
I kissed her forehead.
“Stay here for a little while, okay?”
“Are you leaving?”
“No.”
I saw the fear in her face.
“I’m right downstairs.”
She wrapped her arms around me.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Please don’t let Mommy be mad at me.”
That sentence destroyed something inside me.
I held her tighter.
“I won’t.”
When I returned downstairs, Melissa was pacing.
“You interrogated her?”
“I talked to my daughter.”
“You’re turning her against me.”
“You told her to keep financial secrets from me.”
“That is not what happened.”
I placed the empty piggy bank on the table.
Her face fell.
“Explain this.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“I moved it.”
“Where?”
“I used some.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
Melissa’s eyes hardened.
“Stop treating me like a criminal.”
“Then stop giving me answers that sound like one.”
She slapped both hands on the counter.
“I do everything around here!”
I actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“What does that have to do with Sophie’s money?”
“I buy her clothes. I take her places. I plan birthdays. I buy groceries. You have no idea how expensive our life is.”
“We have a joint account.”
“It’s not enough.”
That surprised me.
I earned a good salary as a construction project manager.
She worked part-time doing social media marketing.
We weren’t swimming in money, but there should have been enough.
“What do you mean?”
Melissa looked away.
I opened the banking app.
Our checking account loaded.
At first, nothing looked unusual.
Then I checked savings.
$2,840.
My mouth went dry.
Three months earlier, we had nearly $19,000.
“Where is our savings?”
Melissa said nothing.
I refreshed the screen.
As if sixteen thousand dollars might magically return.
It didn’t.
“Melissa.”
“I can explain.”
“You’ve said that three times.”
She started crying.
Real tears.
But I couldn’t tell whether they came from guilt or fear.
“I made mistakes.”
“What mistakes cost sixteen thousand dollars?”
“I was trying to build something.”
“What?”
“A business.”
I stared at her.
“You started a business?”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When it was successful.”
My laugh came out bitter.
“What business?”
She hesitated.
“Online fashion.”
I immediately thought of the receipt.
The clothes.
The shoes.
The handbag.
“You used our savings buying clothes?”
“They were samples.”
“The $487 purchase?”
“Yes.”
I grabbed the receipt.
“You bought samples at a downtown designer boutique?”
“They’re content pieces.”
Nothing made sense.
“Show me the business.”
Melissa froze.
“Your website. Inventory. Orders. Whatever you have.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Show me.”
She reached for her phone reluctantly.
Then another notification flashed across my screen.
A credit monitoring alert.
I almost dismissed it.
Then I read the message.
A new credit account had been detected under my name.
My pulse jumped.
I opened it.
Luxury department store credit card.
Balance: $6,219.
Opened four months ago.
I had never applied for it.
I slowly looked up.
Melissa stopped breathing.
“Tell me that isn’t yours.”
She whispered, “Adam.”
“Tell me.”
She sat down.
That answered everything.
“You opened a credit card in my name?”
“I needed better credit.”
“You used my identity?”
“I’m your wife.”
“That doesn’t make my Social Security number yours.”
“I was paying it.”
“With what?”
Silence.
I checked another section of the report.
There was more.
Two inquiries.
A personal loan application.
Another retail account.
My fingers went numb.
“How many?”
Melissa began sobbing.
“I was going to fix it.”
“How many accounts?”
“Three.”
“Three?”
“Maybe four.”
I stared at her.
“Maybe?”
She buried her face in her hands.
“I got overwhelmed.”
I walked away because I could feel anger climbing my throat.
I needed distance.
I stood by the sink and focused on breathing.
Then something occurred to me.
The three hundred dollars Mom transferred for Sophie’s art program.
Sophie had never attended an art program.
I turned.
“What did you tell my mother?”
Melissa looked up.
“What?”
“The art program.”
Her silence told me enough.
“You invented it.”
“I thought Sophie would want to go.”
“Did you enroll her?”
“No.”
“So you asked my mother for money using our daughter.”
“She offered to help!”
“You lied about what the money was for.”
Melissa stood suddenly.
“I was under pressure!”
“From who?”
That question changed her expression.
Fear appeared again.
Not fear of me.
Fear of someone else.
“Melissa?”
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
She grabbed for it.
I reached it first.
A message filled the screen.
NO NAME.
You’re late again.
Then another.
If you don’t send $4,000 by Friday, I’m coming to your house.
I looked at Melissa.
Her face had drained of color.
“Who is this?”
“No one.”
“Someone threatening to come to our house is not no one.”
She reached for the phone.
I moved it away.
“Who is it?”
Her lips trembled.
“It’s complicated.”
“Stop saying that.”
She collapsed into the chair.
Then she whispered the words that changed everything.
“I owe someone money.”
“How much?”
She stared at the floor.
“Twenty-seven thousand.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
“How?”
Melissa began shaking.
“I can explain.”
But after everything I had discovered in less than an hour, I no longer believed explanations.
I believed numbers.
Receipts.
Bank statements.
Messages.
And the frightened expression on my daughter’s face.
I looked at the threatening text again.
Friday.
Today was Wednesday.
May you like
Someone wanted four thousand dollars in forty-eight hours.
And apparently they knew where we lived.
