Chương 13
“What are they worth?”
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe three hundred forty thousand at auction.”
Ernesto sat down slowly.
Mariana said, “Are they financed?”
“The excavator has a balance.”
“How much?”
“About sixty.”
“And the others?”
“Clear.”
“Where are the machines?”
“Here.”
That confused me.
“So Northline owns equipment sitting on your property?”
“According to the titles, maybe.”
“Can they just take them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the equipment businessman.”
“I know how to rent machines, Daniel.”
His voice cracked with anger.
“I don’t spend my life planning for somebody stealing my company with paperwork.”
The words shut me up.
Not because he was right about everything.
Because he was right about that.
Mariana leaned toward Ernesto’s phone.
“Do not move those machines.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Do not sell them, hide them, relocate them, or alter anything.”
My father gave a bitter laugh.
“You think I’m stupid?”
No one answered.
The silence answered for us.
Rogelio said, “I’m calling the sheriff.”
I felt something loosen in my chest.
For the first time that day, he had chosen exposure over concealment.
Then he added, “About the equipment.”
Mariana’s expression tightened.
“And the forged loan?”
“No.”
“Rogelio.”
“That is separate.”
“It may not be.”
“It is.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know what I signed.”
“You also signed blank title transfers.”
My father went quiet.
I expected him to shout.
Instead he said, “I’m not reporting Daniel’s loan until I talk to a lawyer.”
I nearly objected.
Then I stopped.
A lawyer was not the worst idea anyone in my family had produced.
“Fine,” I said.
“But I’m contacting the lender myself.”
“Daniel.”
“My name is on it.”
“If you report forgery before we understand the company exposure, they may accelerate the debt.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
“It becomes everyone’s problem if they seize equipment.”
“You made it everyone’s problem when you used my name.”
The coffee shop suddenly felt too small.
People had begun glancing toward us.
I lowered my voice.
“I’m done letting you decide when I’m allowed to protect myself.”
My father breathed heavily into the phone.
Then he said, “Do what you have to do.”
It was not permission.
That mattered.
I ended the call.
Mariana looked at me.
“You should speak with an attorney before calling the lender too.”
I stared at her.
“I thought you wanted everything reported.”
“I want you to stop reacting in whatever direction hurts Rogelio fastest.”
The sentence hit accurately enough to make me angry.
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It is a little.”
Ernesto suddenly became deeply interested in the pastry case.
I leaned toward Mariana.
“My father forged my signature.”
“I know.”
“He jeopardized my credit.”
“I know.”
“He lied to my mother, mortgaged their house, had an affair, and signed away equipment.”
“I know all of that.”
“Then what reaction would you prefer?”
“A useful one.”
Her voice remained quiet.
“That’s what I would prefer.”
I pushed my chair back.
She caught the edge of the table but did not touch me.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“If the loan is fraudulent, you should challenge it.”
“Thank you.”
“But if you call furious and start making accusations before you have documents, dates, and legal advice, you can complicate your own position.”
“You’re suddenly an attorney?”
“No.”
“Then stop talking like one.”
Her face went blank.
I regretted it immediately.
She stood.
“Fine.”
“Mariana.”
“No.”
She picked up her purse.
“You keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“You ask me to help when I have information you need, then punish me for having it.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You accused me of sleeping with your father yesterday.”
“I didn’t accuse you.”
“You interrogated me about being in his bedroom.”
“Because I saw—”
“A woman with dark hair.”
Her voice rose just enough that the elderly women near the muffin display looked over.
Mariana lowered it again.
“You didn’t see me.”
“I know that now.”
“You saw enough to imagine the worst and not enough to ask me directly.”
“I did ask.”
“After you spent half a day treating me like something disgusting.”
“That is not what happened.”
She laughed softly.
“Okay.”
I hated that okay.
It meant conversation over.
She turned toward the exit.
I followed her outside.
Ernesto stayed inside.
Smartest decision he had made all weekend.
The parking lot was bright and ordinary.
Cars moved along Erie Boulevard.
A child cried because someone would not let him carry a pumpkin twice the size of his torso.
“Mariana.”
She kept walking.
I reached her car before she opened the door.
“I’m sorry.”
“You already said that once today.”
“I mean it again.”
“That’s efficient.”
“Can you not do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make everything sarcastic.”
She looked at me.
“I am trying very hard not to scream at you.”
That stopped me.
Her eyes were wet.
She looked furious about it.
“I kept your father’s secret for three weeks because he told me he would fix the loan before the wedding.”
“I know.”
“No, you know the sentence.”
She wiped beneath one eye with the heel of her hand.
“You don’t know what those three weeks were like.”
I said nothing.
She continued.
“He kept telling me he had a refinancing plan.”
“Of course he did.”
“Daniel.”
“Sorry.”
“He said if I told you before the wedding, you would confront him, Teresa would find out, and everything would explode.”
“He was right about that.”
“Yes.”
“And that makes it okay?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“That is what I keep trying to say.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was scared.”
The answer was so plain that it cut through my anger.
“Of what?”
“That you would cancel the wedding.”
I stared at her.
“Because of him?”
“Because I knew and didn’t tell you immediately.”
The traffic hissed behind us.
Mariana looked down.
“The first day I found your name, I should have called you.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because your mother was already suspicious of me.”
May you like
She swallowed.
“And because your father begged me.”
