Chapter 4: The Deal They Made Without Me
I picked up her phone before she could reach it.
She was on her feet in an instant.
"That's my phone—"
"Sit down, Sarah."
Something in my voice stopped her.
She sat.
I read the message on the screen.
It was from Daniel.
Four words.
*Did he see it?*
I set the phone back on the table slowly, screen up, so she could see that I had read it.
"See what?" I said.
She said nothing.
"What does my brother think I might have seen?"
"You're misreading it."
"Four words," I said.
"Did.
He.
See.
It.
What exactly am I misreading?"
Sarah looked toward the hallway.
Checking that the children were still in the room.
"Daniel has been helping me," she said carefully.
"With something that has nothing to do with Maya."
"Then what does it have to do with?"
She pressed her lips together.
"Sarah."
"It's complicated."
"Uncomplicate it."
She stood up and walked to the window.
Her back was to me.
Outside, the late afternoon light was going flat and gray across the yard.
"When you were passed over for the promotion last year," she said, "the one that went to your colleague, Reeves — do you remember what you told me?"
I said nothing.
I remembered.
"You said if that happened again, you didn't know how we'd keep up with the mortgage on this house.
With three kids in school.
With everything." She turned around.
"I was scared.
Daniel said he had a way to help."
"What kind of help?"
"He knew someone.
An investment.
Short term, high return." She crossed her arms.
"He said you didn't need to know because you'd just talk him out of it and then we'd lose the chance."
My chest went very still.
"What investment, Sarah?"
"It doesn't matter now, the money already—"
"What investment?"
She looked at the floor.
"He moved sixty thousand dollars from our joint savings account into it.
Four months ago."
I sat down on the arm of the sofa.
Sixty thousand dollars.
The account I had been watching carefully.
The account I checked online every other week.
Except for the last month — because work had buried me, and I had trusted that things were stable.
"I never approved that," I said.
"I did."
"You're not the sole signatory."
She said nothing.
I pulled up our bank account on my phone.
My hands were completely steady, which surprised me.
The savings balance was there — exactly what it had been the last time I checked.
I frowned.
"The money is still here," I said.
"I know."
"Then what—"
"Because the investment collapsed," she said flatly.
"Three weeks ago.
Daniel moved it back before you noticed.
But half of it is gone, and what's sitting in that account right now isn't sixty thousand.
It's thirty-one." She met my eyes.
"We're missing twenty-nine thousand dollars."
The room tilted slightly.
"And you were going to tell me this when?"
"When Daniel figured out how to cover it."
"Cover it," I repeated.
"With what?"
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
I stood up.
"Sarah.
Cover it with what?"
"He said he knew someone who would buy the car.
Your father's car.
The one in storage." She said it quickly, like speed would soften it.
"He said it would cover most of the gap and you'd just think it was something you forgot about and—"
"That car is not mine to sell." My voice came out very quiet.
"That car belongs to all three of us.
Me, Daniel, and our sister Gail.
It was left to us by our father."
She already knew that.
The way she looked away confirmed it.
"You and my brother," I said slowly, "were planning to sell an asset that does not belong to either of you, without telling me or Gail, to cover money that should never have been moved in the first place."
She said nothing.
"And while all of this was happening," I said, "you were taking it out on my daughter."
Her head came up.
"That has nothing to do with—"
"Every bit of stress you were carrying.
Every secret.
Every time you were afraid I'd find out." I looked at her steadily.
"And Maya paid for it."
Sarah's mouth opened.
For just a moment, something moved behind her eyes that was almost real.
Then her phone buzzed on the table.
Daniel again.
She reached for it.
I put my hand over it first.
"I'm going to call him," I said.
"And you're going to sit here while I do."
Her face went rigid.
"You don't need to—"
"I already do."
I picked up the phone and pressed call.
It rang twice.
Then my brother's voice came through, careful and low.
"Hey.
Is everything—"
"It's me," I said.
Three full seconds of silence.
"Nathan," Daniel said.
May you like
And the way he said my name told me everything I needed to know about how much he understood the situation.
"I think," I said quietly, "we need to talk."
