Chapter 5
I did not become Tasha’s friend in that café.
I became a woman willing to compare facts with another woman who had been given a different version of the same man.
That distinction mattered.
When she described the money, I asked whether she had records.
“Transfers. Messages. An agreement he wrote.”
“Get your own lawyer,” I said.
“I’m looking.”
“Don’t use anyone Marcus recommends.”
She nodded.
We agreed to preserve what we had and speak through our attorneys when the records overlapped. I did not want either of us accidentally damaging the other’s case by guessing.
Before we left, she asked if I blamed her.
“I blame you for anything you knew and chose,” I said. “I’m still learning what that was.”
“That’s fair.”
I appreciated that she did not ask me to comfort her.
Grace reviewed the photograph of Diane and the messages. She arranged for the lender to investigate the signature and asked that relevant documents be preserved.
I gave a statement to a detective named Aaron Reed.
He asked me when I first learned of the refinance, where I was on the closing date, and who could access my identification.
I answered plainly.
When he asked about Marcus’s affair, I understood why. It connected to who had lived at the property and where the money might have gone.
Still, saying it in a police interview made it feel newly humiliating.
Reed waited when I needed a moment.
“You can be upset and still give an accurate statement,” he said.
I wiped my face and continued.
At home, Camille found me rereading Marcus’s anniversary card.
I had brought the handbag with me because I needed my things. The card had fallen from an inside pocket.
To the woman who makes every place feel like home.
Camille sat beside me.
“Do you want to keep it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to decide today.”
I placed it in an envelope.
The next morning, Marcus arrived at Ellis’s house.
He rang the bell twice.
Ellis answered while I stood in the hallway.
“I need to see my wife,” Marcus said.
“She’ll decide that.”
I stepped forward.
“You can speak to Grace.”
“Please, Nia. Five minutes.”
“No.”
His face hardened.
“So your brother controls you now?”
Ellis stayed still.
I moved closer to the doorway.
“He asked what I wanted. That’s something you stopped doing.”
Marcus looked at him, then back at me.
“Do you know what this is doing to my mother?”
“I know what she helped do to me.”
“She didn’t understand the documents.”
“She understood enough to lie to Tasha.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“We’re all being punished because you’re angry.”
“I am angry. I’m also checking what happened to my money and my signature.”
“You’re destroying our marriage.”
I looked at the man I had loved.
There had been mornings when his face was the first thing I wanted to see. I had imagined growing older beside him. I had defended him when Ellis worried that he dismissed my work.
Now he stood at my brother’s door and treated my refusal as the greatest wrong in the story.
“You already changed the marriage,” I said. “I’m deciding what to do with what’s left.”
He stepped toward me.
Ellis moved between us without touching him.
“Leave.”
Marcus stared for a moment, then walked to his car.
Afterward, I shook so badly I had to sit.
Ellis brought water.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“For believing him when he said you didn’t respect us.”
Ellis sat opposite me.
“I was worried about how he spoke to you. I pushed too hard sometimes.”
“I made you feel unwelcome.”
“You’re here now.”
I began crying.
He let me.
A week later, I filed for divorce.
Grace helped me request financial records and temporary arrangements for the properties. The lender’s investigation continued. The police case continued separately.
None of it happened instantly.
I went back to work.
At first, I stared at floor plans without seeing them. Then a client asked me to explain why I moved a doorway in her renovation.
I knew the answer.
I explained it.
For ten minutes, I remembered I was capable.
When I returned to Ellis’s house, Camille had left a note beside dinner.
You do not have to tell us how productive you were to deserve a meal.
I laughed through tears.
Later that night, Tasha’s attorney sent Grace the investment agreement.
May you like
It promised Tasha a share in a business that Marcus had already registered as inactive.
The date was two months before he took her money.
