Chapter 4: A Man Who Makes Threats
I picked up the phone and read the message again.
*Tell him if he causes problems, I'll make sure he loses more than the money.*
"He knows about me," I said.
Claire's jaw tightened.
"Tom—"
"He knows my name.
He knows what happened tonight.
You told him." I looked at her.
"You texted him while I was standing right here."
"I was scared."
"Of me?"
"Of what you would do."
I put the phone in my pocket.
Claire reached for it immediately.
"That's my phone."
"It's also evidence," I said.
"So you're going to leave it where it is."
"You can't just—"
"Watch me."
Brooke was still standing near the stairs.
She hadn't moved.
She was looking at her mother the way Maya had looked at her — like she was trying to reconcile two different people into one.
"Who is he?" Brooke asked.
"Daniel Marsh.
Who actually is he?"
Claire sat down at the kitchen table.
She put her hands flat on the surface and stared at them.
"I met him fourteen months ago," she said.
"At a conference.
He's a financial consultant."
I almost laughed.
"A financial consultant."
"He told me he had an investment opportunity.
That we could double the money in eight months and I could put it back before Maya's first tuition payment was due."
"So you stole our daughter's college fund," I said, "and gave it to a man you met at a conference fourteen months ago, because he promised to double it."
"I know how it sounds."
"Do you?"
"I was trying to help us.
We've been struggling, Tom.
The business, the second mortgage — I thought if I could just fix it quietly—"
"There is no second mortgage," I said.
She looked up.
"I would know if there was a second mortgage on this house, Claire.
I sign the statements."
Her hands pressed harder against the table.
"What second mortgage?" I said.
"What else have you signed?"
"It wasn't — he said it was an investment vehicle.
A secured—"
"What did you sign?"
The silence stretched long enough that Brooke sat down across from her mother.
Not close.
Just at the same table.
"Show me," I said.
Claire got up and went to the drawer beside the refrigerator — the one we used for takeout menus and spare batteries and things that didn't belong anywhere else.
She reached to the back and pulled out a manila envelope.
She set it on the table.
I opened it.
There were three documents inside.
I read the first page of each one.
By the third, my hands had stopped being steady.
"Claire," I said.
"This isn't an investment vehicle."
She said nothing.
"This is a personal loan agreement.
You borrowed against the house.
Against our house." I set the papers down.
"Sixty thousand dollars.
In your name only."
"He said—"
"He told you it was an investment and you signed a loan document.
Do you understand what that means?"
"I trusted him."
"You gave him our daughter's college fund and then you borrowed sixty thousand dollars against our home and gave him that too." I looked at her.
"How much money has this man taken from you?"
She didn't answer.
"Claire.
Total.
How much?"
"One hundred and eleven thousand dollars," she said.
Very quietly.
Brooke stood up from the table and walked out of the kitchen without a word.
I heard the front door open.
Then close.
I looked at my wife across the kitchen table, the loan documents between us, her phone in my pocket, and I understood that I had been living in a house where a great deal had been happening that I knew nothing about.
"I want his full name," I said.
"His address.
Every piece of contact information you have."
"Tom, if you go after him he'll—"
"He already made a threat, Claire.
In writing.
On your phone." I picked up the documents.
"And now I have these."
I walked to the hallway and took my coat from the hook.
"Where are you going?" she said.
"To find my daughter."
May you like
I meant Brooke.
But as I stepped outside into the cold and saw Maya's bedroom light still on in the upstairs window, I realized I meant both of them.
