Chapter 4: What the Screenshots Said
The color left her face so fast it almost looked like a light switching off.
"Where did you get that?" she said.
"Doesn't matter." Darnell kept the phone steady.
"Is this your account?"
She didn't answer.
Her eyes moved from the screen to his face and back again.
"Keisha." His voice was quiet.
That was worse than yelling.
"Is.
This.
Your account."
"You don't understand what that is."
"Then explain it to me."
She stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind her.
Her voice dropped.
"That money wasn't just sitting there.
I was saving it.
For emergencies.
For Marcus too — for things that came up that you didn't cover."
"I sent six hundred dollars a month.
Every month.
For three years." He pulled up the second screenshot.
"This shows three hundred and forty dollars going out to an account with no name.
Where did it go?"
"Bills," she said quickly.
"The house costs money, Darnell.
You think six hundred covers everything Marcus needs?"
"It covers school supplies.
Which is what I sent it for.
Which is what I labeled it for." He lowered the phone.
"And it covers a lot more than a few notebooks and a backpack, which is all he came home with."
"I told you — I split it between the kids—"
"Stop." He held up one hand.
"Don't say that again.
Because I've got four images on my phone right now that show a pattern going back two years.
And if I pull my bank records tonight, I think I'm going to find that pattern goes back further than that."
She was quiet.
"How much, Keisha?"
She looked away toward the street.
"How much of Marcus's money went into that account?"
"It wasn't like that—"
"How much."
She exhaled slowly through her nose.
"I always made sure Marcus had what he needed first—"
"That is not what I asked you." He stepped closer.
Not threatening.
Just close enough that she couldn't look away from him.
"I asked you how much of the money I sent for my son ended up somewhere else.
I want a number."
Her jaw moved.
Then she said, very quietly: "I don't know exactly."
"You don't know." He stepped back.
"Three years of transfers and you don't know."
"I kept it for the household—"
"You kept it for yourself." He said it without heat.
Just fact.
"And you've been doing it since the beginning."
She flinched.
Just slightly.
But he caught it — the same way he'd caught that expression in the kitchen an hour ago.
The slight shift that meant she'd heard something she wasn't supposed to know he knew.
"Who told you that?" she said.
He didn't answer.
"Darnell.
Who have you been talking to?"
He slid the phone into his pocket.
"I'm going to see Marcus."
"He's at my mother's—"
"I know where he is." He moved past her toward the steps.
"I'll have him back by seven."
"We're not done talking about this."
He stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked back up at her.
"No," he said.
"We're not.
But the next conversation isn't going to be just the two of us."
He got in his car.
May you like
She stood on the porch and watched him pull away.
Her phone was already in her hand before his taillights disappeared around the corner.
