Chapter 5 - Denise Knew
Andre’s mother answered Nia’s call on the third ring.
“Nia, baby.”
Denise Wells always called her baby when she was nervous.
Nia had once found it comforting.
“Do you have time to talk?”
A pause.
“About Andre?”
Nia closed her office door.
“So you know something happened.”
“I know he called me last night upset.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That you embarrassed him in a restaurant.”
Nia almost admired the speed of the reframing.
“Did he mention the eighteen thousand dollars?”
Denise became quiet.
“Nia, marriage is complicated.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“You shouldn’t discuss money when emotions are high.”
Nia looked at the bank statement.
“Did Andre send eighty-five hundred dollars to an account connected to your address last November?”
Silence.
Then Denise exhaled.
“He was holding money.”
“For you?”
“For himself.”
Nia’s pulse quickened.
“What is DW Consulting?”
Denise answered reluctantly.
“It’s an old business name.”
“Whose?”
“Mine.”
Nia leaned back.
Denise had retired from property management four years earlier.
“Why did my husband transfer money from our joint savings into your old business account?”
“He needed somewhere separate.”
“Separate from what?”
“Nia.”
“Separate from me?”
Denise did not answer.
The pain of that silence was sharper than Nia expected.
She had spent five Christmases in Denise’s home.
She had driven her to a colonoscopy.
She had helped organize Denise’s sixtieth birthday.
“You knew.”
“I knew Andre was trying to protect himself.”
“From me?”
“From uncertainty.”
Nia stared at the wall.
“What uncertainty?”
“You both came into the marriage with children.”
Nia closed her eyes.
There it was again.
The invisible competition Andre had apparently been discussing with everyone except her.
“Denise, I have never tried to take anything from Malik.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“But you helped Andre hide money.”
“He asked me to hold funds temporarily.”
“Money from my household.”
“He contributed to that household.”
“So did I.”
Denise sighed.
“You’re making this very legal.”
“It may become legal.”
The words slipped out before Nia planned them.
Denise immediately changed tone.
“You don’t want to threaten divorce because you’re angry.”
“I didn’t threaten anything.”
“You just said legal.”
“I said I need to understand what happened.”
“Nia, every married person has things they don’t tell their spouse.”
“Not eighteen thousand dollars.”
Denise’s silence confirmed she knew the total was larger than the amount routed through her.
Nia sat forward.
“How much money did Andre hide?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I truly don’t know.”
“Did you return the eighty-five hundred?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“January.”
“To where?”
Denise hesitated.
“His personal account.”
Nia wrote it down.
“Why?”
“He said the timing was right.”
“For what?”
“I assumed the property.”
Nia’s grip tightened around her pen.
“So you knew about the duplex too.”
“Yes.”
“And Keisha?”
“I knew she was involved.”
“Did you know Andre told her we were separating?”
“No.”
That answer came quickly enough that Nia believed it.
Denise sounded genuinely disturbed.
“He said what?”
“He told Keisha our marriage was basically over.”
“Oh, Andre.”
The disappointment in Denise’s voice was real.
But Nia felt no sympathy.
“Why would he tell you he needed to protect himself from me?”
Denise took a long breath.
“His father cleaned out our accounts before he left.”
“I know.”
“He watched me rebuild from nothing.”
“And now he is doing the same thing.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Nia, Andre isn’t leaving you.”
“Then why did he tell another woman he was?”
Denise had no answer.
Before ending the call, Nia asked one final question.
“Did you ever tell him this was wrong?”
Denise whispered, “I told him marriage makes people vulnerable.”
Nia understood.
“That wasn’t my question.”
Denise began to cry.
Nia ended the call.
At lunch, she downloaded the joint checking statements.
By midafternoon, she had traced payments to DW Consulting, AKM Holdings, the title company, and several transfers labeled simply “family.”
One recurring payment confused her.
$650 — RIVERSTONE STORAGE.
Every month for nine months.
Nia searched Riverstone Storage.
It was not a storage facility.
It was a commercial property management company.
She called.
“I’m trying to identify a payment from my account.”
The representative asked for the reference number.
Nia provided it.
“One moment.”
Keyboard clicks.
Then:
“That payment is rent.”
“For what address?”
The representative gave her a suite number in a small office complex twenty minutes away.
Nia wrote it down.
“Who is the tenant?”
“I can only provide the business name.”
“That’s fine.”
The representative read it.
Wells Family Ventures.
Nia froze.
She had never heard of Wells Family Ventures.
She searched the Georgia business registry.
The company had been formed seventeen months earlier.
Registered manager:
Andre Wells.
Registered mailing address:
Denise Wells.
And unlike AKM Holdings, this company had existed before Andre ever claimed they needed to save money.
Nia stared at the screen.
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There were not two financial lives.
There were at least three.
