Chapter 6
I kept the chain on the door.
“What does your mother’s money have to do with mine?”
Marcus looked toward Tasha behind me.
“I need to talk to you alone.”
“You had six months to talk to me alone.”
His face tightened. “Denise took out a loan against her place. I didn’t know until after she did it. She gave Caleb the money because I told her the office would recover.”
“How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
I remembered Denise’s face when I asked about our savings.
“Does she know you tried to use this house too?”
“Yes.”
I waited.
“She told me to stop,” he said. “I thought if the loan went through, I could pay her back before she found out how bad it was.”
“Who wrote my name on the application?”
Marcus looked at the floor.
“Answer me.”
“I did.”
Hearing him admit it should have brought relief. Instead, I felt a deep, awful quiet.
Tasha moved closer. She heard every word.
“I’ll tell Priya,” I said.
“Nia, I can fix it.”
“You keep saying that. Every time I learn more, fixing it means taking more from someone who trusted you.”
“I never meant for you to lose the house.”
“You were willing to risk it without telling me.”
Marcus’s eyes filled.
I had seen him cry when Mom died. I had held him after his father’s funeral. I knew tears could be real. I also knew they couldn’t give back the choice he had taken from me.
“I’ll cooperate,” he said.
“Call Priya tomorrow.”
I closed the door.
He stayed on the porch for a long time. I could see his shadow beneath the hall curtain. Then it disappeared.
The next morning, Denise called me.
“Marcus told me he came by.”
“He admitted he signed my name.”
She made a small sound.
“Did you know?”
“I suspected,” she said. “When I asked him, he said you’d given him permission.”
I pressed the phone to my ear. “You knew enough to ask him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Because I was afraid of the answer.”
Her honesty hurt more than another excuse would have.
Denise began crying. “I kept thinking about what would happen if the business failed. I thought he might lose everything.”
“He almost made that happen to me.”
“I know.”
“Your loan is yours to deal with. My house was never yours to offer.”
“I know that too.”
I ended the call gently, but I didn’t tell her it was all right. It wasn’t.
At Priya’s office, I gave a written statement and the copies of Marcus’s messages. The lender had halted the loan. Marcus’s admission was useful, Priya said, but I needed to let the investigation follow its course.
Then she showed me something unexpected.
Caleb had sent records through his own attorney. According to those records, Marcus had transferred much of the business money to an account Caleb controlled. Caleb claimed it was a normal payment. Marcus claimed Caleb had misled him.
“Can either of them prove it?” I asked.
“They’ll have to provide full records. I’m focused on protecting your interest in the house and recovering the money from your joint account.”
I looked down at the transfer dates.
One of them was the day Mom had been admitted to the hospital for the last time.
I had been in a waiting room, frightened and exhausted. Marcus had sat beside me, rubbing my back while I tried to call Tasha.
Later that same afternoon, he had moved money out of our savings.
I folded the paper.
“Did he think I’d never check?”
“I can’t tell you what he thought,” Priya said.
I could.
He thought I would keep trusting him.
That evening, Serena called. She had filed a report about the money Marcus had taken from her. She had also spoken to a counselor through her workplace.
“I kept wondering whether I’d missed something obvious,” she said.
“I did that too.”
“Did it help?”
“No.”
She gave a sad laugh.
“I found out his mother knew,” I told her.
“Do you hate her?”
“I’m angry with her. I don’t know what comes after that.”
Serena was quiet.
Then she said, “You don’t have to decide yet.”
After we hung up, I went into the bedroom.
Marcus’s closet door stood open. He had taken a few things while I was at work, with Tasha present. His side looked strangely neat.
At the back of the top shelf, I saw a shoebox I didn’t recognize.
Inside were old birthday cards, a photograph of his father, and a small notebook.
I nearly put it back. Then a slip of paper fell from the notebook.
It was a receipt for a storage unit, paid six months in advance.
The address was across town. The customer name was mine.
I called Tasha into the room.
“I didn’t rent this,” I said.
She read the receipt.
“Then what does he have there?”
The storage office was closed for the night. I sent the receipt to Priya and placed it in an envelope.
I lay awake thinking about Marcus using my name again.
At six the next morning, Priya called.
She had spoken to the storage company’s manager. The account existed. Someone had presented a copy of my driver’s license when opening it.
May you like
The copy was clear enough to recognize.
It had been taken from the folder I kept in our bedroom.
