Chapter 4: I Haven't Done Anything Yet
The line stayed open.
Marcus's hand tightened around the phone.
"The car," he said.
"The lingerie.
The video you sent to my wife."
"I didn't send any video," Sasha said.
Her voice was perfectly calm.
The kind of calm that takes practice.
"Then who did?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." A pause.
"But whoever did sounds like they care about her more than you do."
I leaned forward.
"This is Danielle."
Silence on the line.
Three full seconds of it.
"I know who you are," Sasha said finally.
"Then you know I'm the one you've been taking money from for over a year."
"I haven't taken anything.
He gave it to me."
"He gave you money that belonged to both of us.
From an account with both our names on it."
"That's between you and him." Her tone didn't change.
"I'm not your problem, Danielle.
He is."
She wasn't wrong.
I knew she wasn't wrong.
That made it worse.
"Are you in love with him?" I said.
Marcus looked up sharply.
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"I thought I was."
"And now?"
"Now I think he's exactly the kind of man who does this to two women at the same time and tells himself he's managing it."
I watched my husband's face go through several things at once.
"Why the car?" I said.
"If it wasn't you, do you know who it was?"
"I have a guess," Sasha said.
"But it's not my story to tell."
"Whose story is it?"
The line went quiet again.
Then: "Ask him about the Riverside account."
Marcus stood up so fast his chair scraped back.
"Sasha—"
"I'm done," she said.
"Don't call me again."
The call ended.
The kitchen was very quiet.
I looked at Marcus standing there with the dead phone in his hand.
"What is the Riverside account?"
"It's nothing."
"She just told me to ask about it."
"She doesn't know what she's talking about."
I picked up my own phone and typed the words into our bank's search function.
Nothing came back.
I tried a Google search.
Marcus Hale Riverside account.
Nothing useful.
"Is it a different bank?" I said.
"Danielle, please—"
"A different bank, Marcus.
Yes or no."
He sat back down.
He put his phone face-down on the table, which was the first dishonest thing he'd done with his hands since we'd sat here.
Every other movement had been nervous, uncertain.
That one was deliberate.
"Yes," he said.
"How much is in it?"
He didn't answer.
"More than eighteen thousand?"
Still nothing.
I stood up.
"I'm going to call my sister.
I'm going to ask her if I can stay there tonight.
And while I'm gone, you're going to think very carefully about what you want to tell me when I come back."
"You don't have to leave."
"I know I don't have to." I picked up my keys from the hook by the door.
"I want to."
I was halfway to my car when my phone buzzed again.
Same unknown number.
No words this time.
Just a screenshot.
It was a bank statement.
An account in Marcus's name only, at a bank I'd never heard of.
Riverside Community Credit Union.
The balance shown was $91,400.
I sat in my car in the driveway, ten feet from the lingerie still hanging off his mirrors, and looked at that number until it stopped feeling real.
Then a final message from the unknown number arrived.
*"That's not all of it.
May you like
There's a second account.
And a name on it you'll recognize."*
