Chương 7
“Credit union?”
“I said I don’t know.”
I looked away.
Jake watched me.
Then he said, “There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
I waited.
He swallowed.
“I think my car is in your name.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean, you think?”
Jake looked down at the burger wrapper in his lap.
“When Dad got it, he said the loan was easier because of your credit.”
My stomach went cold.
“What loan?”
“The car loan.”
“I never signed anything.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked up.
“I didn’t know at the time.”
“When was this?”
“Last year.”
I stood.
The apartment suddenly felt too small.
“What exactly did Dad tell you?”
Jake shifted against the cabinet.
“He said he had a way to get the payment lower.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“He said your credit was better than his.”
I took out my phone.
“What dealership?”
Jake named one about twenty miles away.
I searched my email.
Nothing.
Then I searched the dealership name.
Still nothing.
I opened my credit monitoring app.
I had not checked it in months.
The score took a few seconds to load.
Then the accounts appeared.
My truck loan.
Two credit cards.
A small tool financing account.
And an auto loan I did not recognize.
My thumb stopped moving.
The balance was a little over fourteen thousand dollars.
Opened eleven months earlier.
Monthly payment, three hundred and twelve dollars.
I looked at Jake.
“What’s your payment?”
His face changed.
“Three twelve.”
Neither of us spoke.
My ears started ringing.
Jake stood too.
“Mike, I swear I didn’t know.”
“Whose name is on the registration?”
“I don’t know.”
“You drive the car every day and you don’t know whose name is on it?”
“Dad handles all that.”
“Of course he does.”
I walked to the window.
The street below was quiet except for a pickup idling at the stop sign.
The driver tossed something into the passenger seat, checked traffic, then turned.
My life had apparently contained a fourteen-thousand-dollar loan for almost a year and I had gone to work every day without knowing.
I opened the account details.
No late payments.
That almost made it worse.
Somebody had been carefully maintaining a fraud.
Jake came up behind me.
“What does it say?”
“It says I bought your car.”
He went pale.
“I thought Dad bought it.”
“Apparently I was very generous.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make jokes.”
I turned around.
“You’re right.”
He flinched anyway.
I lowered my voice.
“Did you ever sign paperwork?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
He rubbed both hands over his hair.
“At the dealership, there was a bunch of stuff.”
“Did you sign a loan?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you not know?”
“Because Dad kept pointing where I should sign.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
Jake’s face tightened.
“I know how that sounds.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
I looked back at the phone.
There was an account number but no document access through the monitoring app.
I called the lender.
An automated system asked for information I did not have.
After several menus, I reached a fraud hotline message saying the department was closed until morning.
I hung up.
Jake stood in the middle of the kitchen with his hands hanging uselessly at his sides.
“What happens now?”
“I find out whether Dad forged my signature.”
“He wouldn’t.”
I looked at him.
Jake corrected himself.
“I mean, I don’t think he would.”
“Neither did I.”
He sat down again.
“What happens to my car?”
There it was.
I felt anger rise so fast that I had to turn away.
Not because he asked.
Because of course that was the question that occurred to him.
His car.
His inconvenience.
His life.
I gripped the edge of the folding table.
Then I saw his face reflected faintly in the dark window.
He looked scared.
Not spoiled.
Not smug.
Just twenty years old and scared.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He nodded.
For once, he did not complain.
At nine-thirty, he left the car parked behind Carol’s garage and took a rideshare home.
I told him not to drive it until I knew whose name was legally attached to it.
He agreed without arguing.
That scared me more than if he had fought.
I barely slept.
At six the next morning, I called the lender from my truck outside the shop.
After verifying my Social Security number and answering security questions, I reached a woman named Denise.
She spoke carefully once I told her I did not recognize the account.
“I’m going to place a temporary fraud review flag on the loan,” she said.
“That does not determine fraud, but it limits certain account changes while we investigate.”
“Can you send me the original application?”
“We can send copies of documents associated with the account after identity verification.”
“How long?”
“You should receive secure access today.”
“Who made the down payment?”
“I can’t interpret transaction records for you, but the file indicates a five-thousand-dollar down payment.”
I gripped the steering wheel.
“From what account?”
“I can provide the last four digits.”
She read them.
I knew them.
Mom’s checking account.
The same account where my eight hundred dollars landed every month.
I thanked Denise and ended the call.
For several minutes, I stayed in the truck.
Five thousand dollars.
That was more than six months of my so-called rent.
I opened my banking history and searched transfers to Mom.
There were too many.
Eight hundred.
Nine hundred and twenty.
Eight hundred.
One thousand.
Eight hundred.
A hundred marked groceries.
Two hundred marked emergency.
Fifty marked utilities.
I had never added it all together because I was afraid of what the total would say about me.
Now I did.
Twenty-nine thousand, four hundred and sixty dollars over four years, not counting cash or things I had purchased directly.
I stared at the number.
Luis knocked on the passenger window.
May you like
I jumped.
He pointed at his watch.
