Chapter 7: The Name in the Middle
The door closed behind Sandra.
None of us moved for a moment.
Then Casey turned to Derek.
"What is Renfield?"
Derek's face had gone the kind of still that isn't calm.
It's the stillness of someone deciding very quickly what to say.
"It's nothing."
"Sandra just walked out of this house and told my mother to ask you about Renfield." Casey's voice was level.
Controlled.
"That is not nothing."
"It's a business thing.
It doesn't concern—"
"Derek."
He looked at her.
Then at me.
Then back at her.
"It's an LLC," he said finally.
"I set it up eighteen months ago."
"For what?"
He pulled out a chair and sat down.
He put his hands on the table, fingers spread, like he was trying to hold something steady.
"I was going to tell you.
I was waiting for the right time."
"Tell me what?"
"I've been doing side work.
Renovation contracts.
Small jobs, mostly.
I set up the LLC so I could invoice properly, keep it separate from my regular income." He paused.
"I've been running it through a separate account."
Casey stared at him.
"How long?"
"Eighteen months."
"And you didn't tell me."
"I was going to use it to pay back my mother.
That was the plan.
Build it up quietly, pay her back in one lump, and then tell you.
So you wouldn't have to worry about it."
"How much is in the account?"
Derek's jaw moved.
"Casey—"
"How much, Derek?"
"Fourteen thousand."
The number landed in the room like something physical.
Casey sat down slowly.
"You have fourteen thousand dollars in an account I didn't know existed," she said.
"While I have been stressed about money for two years.
While I was nursing a newborn and barely sleeping.
While my mother was scrubbing your floors and you were charging her $640 for the privilege."
"I was going to—"
"You were going to tell me." Her voice didn't rise.
It dropped.
"When?"
Derek didn't answer.
I had stayed quiet through all of it.
But I leaned forward now.
"Derek," I said.
"Does your mother know about the LLC account?"
He looked at me.
"Yes."
"Did she know before today?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"So when she offered you the $23,000 loan," I said slowly, "she already knew you had a separate income stream she could point to.
She knew the debt could be repaid.
She just chose not to mention it."
Derek's eyes went to the table.
"She wanted it to stay between us," he said.
"Family business."
"No," I said.
"She wanted it to stay over Casey's head."
He didn't argue.
Casey stood up again.
She walked to the counter and stood with her back to us for a moment.
When she turned around, her face was dry.
Whatever she'd been feeling had moved somewhere deeper.
"I want to see the account," she said.
"Casey—"
"I want to see it today.
The statements.
Everything.
And then we're going to sit down and figure out what happens next." She looked at him steadily.
"All of it, Derek.
No more separate.
No more waiting for the right time."
Derek reached into his back pocket and set his phone on the table.
He opened the banking app and slid it toward her.
Casey looked at the screen for a long moment.
Then she looked at me.
"Mom," she said quietly.
"I think I need you to stay."
I didn't hesitate.
"I'm not going anywhere."
But as I said it, my phone buzzed on the table.
A text.
From a number I didn't recognize.
*You should know what Mary isn't telling you either.
Ask her about the will.*
Casey saw my face change.
"Mom?
What is it?"
I turned the phone over slowly.
"Nothing," I said.
But my hands weren't steady.
Because there was a will.
And there was something in it I had never told Casey.
Something I had kept quiet for six years, for reasons that had seemed right at the time.
May you like
Someone knew.
And now I had to decide whether to tell my daughter the truth before she found out another way.
