Chương 10
My eyes went to the accordion folder.
“What do you mean?”
Lauren lowered her voice.
“I mean your husband didn’t lose sixty-eight thousand dollars helping Aaron.”
Behind her, I heard a car door shut.
Then wind.
“He lost it trying to hide what he did with your money.”
“What did he do?”
“You should ask him.”
“I’m asking you.”
Lauren breathed out.
“All right.”
Then she said, “Ask Daniel why there’s an investment account in his name that you’ve never seen.”
The line stayed between us for several seconds.
Then I said, “What investment account?”
Lauren exhaled as if she had been waiting for me to ask correctly.
“Ask him.”
“You called me to tell me.”
“No, I called because Daniel is about to make me the convenient villain in a family that has been lying to itself for years.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the answer you should care about.”
I gripped the edge of my desk.
“Account number.”
She laughed once.
“You think I carry his brokerage statements around?”
“Then how do you know it exists?”
“Because I helped him open it.”
Robert’s eyes snapped toward me.
“Why?”
“Because Daniel didn’t want you to know how much money he was putting into Aaron’s company.”
My stomach tightened.
“What money?”
“His.”
“That isn’t specific.”
“Some of his paycheck.”
“Some?”
“Some of yours.”
Robert reached for a pen.
I held up my hand without looking at him.
Lauren continued.
“Daniel said you would never agree to invest if you knew how unstable Aaron’s business was.”
“You’re telling me my husband opened an investment account to secretly fund your husband.”
“I’m telling you Daniel wanted in before everything fell apart.”
That did not fit.
Not cleanly.
Daniel had described himself as the reluctant rescuer.
A man pulled into Aaron’s disaster after the fact.
Lauren was describing ambition.
Complicity.
Maybe greed.
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he was tired of being the little brother.”
Her voice had lost its smugness.
“He wanted one win that was his.”
I looked through the glass wall of my office.
Nia was speaking to someone at the reception desk.
Normal movements.
Normal voices.
My life had become unrecognizable without changing rooms.
“How much did he invest?”
“Ask him.”
“Lauren.”
“I don’t know the final number.”
“That means you know a number.”
“Forty thousand at first.”
My pulse jumped.
“That is more than his annual savings.”
“I know.”
“Where did it come from?”
“You should ask the man you married.”
I pressed the phone harder to my ear.
“Did any of it come from me?”
Silence.
That was enough.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because unlike your husband, I don’t pretend to know everything.”
“Did you know he was taking money from our household account?”
“I knew he was moving money.”
“That was not the question.”
She gave a tired sigh.
“Mariana, everybody in that family treated your income like weather.”
I went still.
“What does that mean?”
“It was just there.”
Her words were calm now.
“Something they planned around without admitting they were depending on it.”
I hated her for saying it.
Mostly because it was true.
Robert wrote something on the legal pad and turned it toward me.
Keep her talking.
I looked away from him.
“Did Aaron know Daniel was using my money?”
“Yes.”
“Did Theresa?”
“Not at first.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she knew later.”
My jaw tightened.
“Later when?”
“After the investment started going bad.”
“Define going bad.”
“Aaron lost a supplier contract.”
“You mean a client.”
“No.”
There was a pause.
“You don’t even know what the business actually was, do you?”
I closed my eyes.
“No.”
“It wasn’t consulting.”
“Then what was it?”
“He was buying surplus restaurant equipment and reselling it to independent operators.”
That was the first explanation I had ever heard that sounded like a real business.
“At first he made money,” Lauren said.
“A lot?”
“Enough to make everybody stupid.”
I almost laughed.
It was the most accurate sentence anyone had said all week.
“So Daniel invested.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“Aaron expanded too fast.”
“How?”
“Warehouse space.”
“Inventory.”
“Two employees.”
“A delivery van.”
“He thought the volume would keep growing.”
“And it didn’t.”
“No.”
Lauren’s voice softened slightly.
“Then one of the restaurant groups he sold to stopped paying invoices.”
“How much?”
“About seventy thousand.”
“That caused everything?”
“No.”
“That caused panic.”
“What caused everything?”
“Aaron borrowed to cover the gap.”
“From lenders?”
“From family first.”
My eyes moved to the handwritten debt sheet.
“Theresa.”
“Yes.”
“Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“You.”
“Yes.”
“Then lenders.”
“Yes.”
“And when the lenders became a problem?”
Lauren did not answer.
I said, “That’s when the fraud started.”
“You don’t get to call it that yet.”
“Theresa says she didn’t sign the loan.”
“Theresa says a lot of things once they become embarrassing.”
Robert looked at me.
I heard the warning in that silence.
Do not let Lauren pull me into certainty.
“Did you submit the application?”
“No.”
“Did Aaron?”
“No.”
“Did Daniel?”
Lauren gave a humorless laugh.
“You really want it to be him now.”
“I want to know who did it.”
“Well, welcome to the club.”
“Then why did the application use your employment information?”
Silence.
This silence was different.
Not calculated.
Hit.
“How do you know that?”
“Theresa got a copy.”
Lauren did not respond.
I could hear traffic near her.
Then a truck backing up somewhere in the distance.
“Lauren.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Did you fill out that application?”
“No.”
“Did you help fill it out?”
Another pause.
“I helped Mom with some forms.”
“What forms?”
“Insurance paperwork.”
“What kind?”
“Homeowner’s.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“Before the loan?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember enough to accuse Daniel of hiding an investment account.”
“That’s because I helped him open it.”
“Then help me with this.”
Lauren’s breathing changed.
“Mom asked me to fix her insurance information because the bank said something didn’t match.”
“Which bank?”
“I don’t remember.”
May you like
“What didn’t match?”
“Her income.”
