Chapter 8: What Delia Had to Say
Marcus stepped away from the table with a quiet word to Renee.
He walked to the far side of the garden, past the hedgerow, out through a side gate onto a narrow path that ran along the outside of the venue wall.
He called the number.
It answered immediately.
"Mr.
Holloway." The voice was younger than he expected.
Slightly hoarse, like someone who hadn't slept.
"Delia," he said.
"Yes." A pause.
"I know Derek told you about the apartment and the car.
But there's something he doesn't know.
Something I didn't tell him because I wasn't sure I was going to say anything at all."
Marcus leaned against the wall.
"I'm listening."
"Vanessa has a second phone," Delia said.
"She's had it for about a year.
She keeps it in her gym bag.
I saw it by accident about six months ago and I asked her about it.
She said it was an old work phone." A pause.
"It wasn't."
"How do you know?"
"Because I saw the screen once when she left it on the kitchen counter.
She didn't know I was there.
There was a message on it from someone named Terrence." Delia's voice was careful.
"The message said — and I'm quoting this exactly because I wrote it down — it said: *She doesn't know about the account in Florida, does she?*"
Marcus said nothing.
"I don't know who Terrence is," Delia said.
"I don't know what the account in Florida is.
But I know Vanessa saw me looking at the phone and she grabbed it and she told me if I ever mentioned it to anyone she would make sure I lost the apartment and the car and everything she'd helped me with." A breath.
"That's when I got scared.
That's when I called Derek."
"Is there anything else?" Marcus said.
"One more thing." Delia paused.
"The day she asked me to sign as a witness on the credit line application — the one with your forged signature — she told me it was a joint account you'd both agreed to.
She showed me a document that looked like your consent.
I signed as a witness because I believed her." Her voice dropped.
"I didn't know it was forged.
I want you to know that.
I was a witness to a fraud and I didn't know it."
"I believe you," Marcus said.
"I'll give a full statement to the police or a lawyer.
Whatever you need.
I have the message I wrote down — the one from Terrence.
I took a photo of it on my own phone when Vanessa wasn't looking."
"Send it to Derek," Marcus said.
"He'll get it to my lawyer."
"Okay." A pause.
"Mr.
Holloway — I'm sorry.
I should have said something sooner.
I was scared and I was selfish and I let it go on too long."
"You said something today," Marcus said.
"That counts."
He ended the call and stood on the narrow path for a moment.
The sounds of the garden — voices, cutlery, a child laughing somewhere — came faintly over the wall.
An account in Florida.
A man named Terrence.
A second phone kept in a gym bag.
He called Gerald back.
Gerald answered on the second ring.
"That was fast.
What happened?"
Marcus told him about Delia's call.
About the second phone.
About Terrence.
About the account in Florida.
Gerald was quiet for a moment.
"That changes the scope," he said.
"If there's a second account and a second party involved, this may not be just fraud against you.
This could be a pattern."
"What do I do?"
"Tonight — nothing.
Let me make some calls.
I have a contact at the financial crimes unit.
This may be bigger than a civil case." A pause.
"Marcus, I need you to not confront Vanessa directly.
Not tonight, not tomorrow.
Let the process work."
"She's already gone," Marcus said.
"Good.
Keep it that way." Gerald's voice was steady.
"You did the right things today.
You have documentation, you have a cooperating witness, you have bank records.
Let me do my job."
"All right," Marcus said.
"Go be with your daughter," Gerald said.
"That's where you need to be right now."
Marcus ended the call.
He put his phone in his pocket and stood on the path for another moment, looking up at the strip of sky above the venue wall.
It was late afternoon now.
The light had gone golden and low.
He thought about the last two years.
The dinners, the conversations, the plans they had made together.
The way she had offered to manage the account — *it'll be easier, I'll make sure Maya always has what she needs* — and how grateful he had been.
How completely he had believed her.
He pushed off from the wall and walked back through the side gate into the garden.
Maya was still at the table.
She had finished the bread roll and was now drawing something on a paper napkin with a pen she had apparently borrowed from one of the guests.
She didn't look up when he sat down, but she shifted automatically to lean against him again.
He looked at what she was drawing.
It was a house.
A simple one — square walls, triangle roof, a door in the middle, two windows.
A tree on one side.
"Who lives there?" he asked.
Maya considered the drawing.
"Us," she said.
"You and me and Grandma Iris."
Marcus looked at the little house on the paper napkin.
"That sounds good," he said.
Maya added a small figure in the doorway.
"And a dog," she said.
"We need a dog."
"We can talk about the dog," Marcus said.
Maya looked up at him then — really looked at him, the way she had when she was small and learning to read his face.
"Dad," she said.
"Are we going to be okay?"
He looked at her — at her big brown eyes, at the dress she had bought herself, at the pen still in her hand.
"Yes," he said.
"We're going to be okay."
May you like
And for the first time since the morning, he meant it without reservation.
But three days later, Gerald called with news that made Marcus sit down in the middle of whatever he was doing and stare at the wall for a long time.
