Chapter 9 - The Duplex
Jordan saw the duplex on Wednesday.
He did not tell Marcus he was going.
Alicia drove.
The neighborhood sat twenty minutes from the polished subdivision where Marcus lived.
Not bad.
Not affluent.
Working-class houses, chain-link fences, corner stores, children’s bicycles left on porches.
The duplex itself was brick with white trim.
One side looked occupied.
The other had plywood over a lower window.
Jordan stared from the passenger seat.
“That’s Dad’s investment?”
“Apparently.”
Alicia parked across the street.
“You sure we should be here?”
“We’re not trespassing.”
“I mean morally.”
Alicia looked at him.
“Since when are you worried about your father’s privacy?”
“Since I don’t want to become him.”
That silenced her.
They remained in the car.
Jordan searched public records.
Marcus had bought the property for $286,000.
Mortgage: $229,000.
A second lien appeared fourteen months later.
Then a home-equity style business credit line.
Alicia shook her head.
“He leveraged it.”
“For what?”
“No idea.”
Jordan looked at the boarded window.
“Maybe repairs.”
“Maybe.”
A woman exited the occupied side carrying a trash bag.
She noticed them.
Alicia lowered her window.
“Excuse me.”
The woman stopped cautiously.
“Can I help you?”
“Sorry. We’re looking for the owner.”
“You Marcus?”
Jordan and Alicia exchanged looks.
“No,” Alicia said. “We’re family.”
The woman laughed without humor.
“Then tell Marcus the upstairs bathroom still leaks.”
Jordan’s stomach sank.
“Has he been here recently?”
“Not in months.”
“What about a property manager?”
“Marcus is the property manager.”
Alicia sighed.
The woman approached.
“You his wife?”
“Ex-wife.”
“Ooh.”
Jordan almost smiled.
The woman noticed him.
“And you?”
“His son.”
Her expression softened.
“Sorry, baby. I’m frustrated.”
“It’s okay.”
She shifted the trash bag.
“Your dad’s not a bad landlord. Wasn’t, anyway. First year he fixed everything. Then last winter, stuff started taking forever.”
“Did he say why?”
“Money.”
Alicia looked at Jordan.
The woman continued.
“Other side’s empty because the last tenants trashed it. He said he needed ten grand to turn it around. Then pipes froze.”
Jordan remembered the withdrawals.
Roof at Marcus’s home.
Property repairs.
Maybe some money had gone here.
“Did he fix the pipes?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
The woman thought.
“February.”
Jordan checked the account.
February withdrawal: $875.
Not enough.
He frowned.
“Did he ever mention a partner?”
“No.”
A truck pulled into the driveway.
The woman waved and went inside.
Alicia started the car.
Jordan didn’t move.
“What?”
“Dad said twenty-four thousand down.”
“Okay.”
“Twenty percent of two-eighty-six is more than fifty-seven.”
Alicia looked at him.
“He could have financed with less down.”
“Maybe.”
Jordan checked property documents again.
FHA? No.
Conventional investment mortgage.
Required down payment likely higher.
Alicia understood.
“He lied about the purchase price contribution.”
“Or about where the rest came from.”
Back home, Alicia searched old tax files.
Because Marcus had still been legally required to exchange certain financial documents for child support calculations after the divorce, she had copies from two years earlier.
Jordan sat beside her.
There it was.
LPM Holdings capital contribution.
$61,500.
Jordan stared.
“Dad said twenty-four.”
“Yes.”
“Where did sixty-one come from?”
Alicia opened another statement.
During that same month, Marcus had withdrawn $43,000 from an investment brokerage account.
“That explains most.”
“But not all.”
“Eighteen thousand difference.”
Jordan thought.
“Grandpa’s account only had ten.”
“Yes.”
“So not from there.”
Alicia searched another file.
Then stopped.
“What?”
She stared at the screen.
“Your college account.”
Jordan’s stomach dropped.
“What college account?”
Alicia closed her eyes.
“Your 529.”
“I have a 529?”
“You had one.”
Jordan stood.
“How many accounts did everybody hide from me?”
“We weren’t hiding it. Parents usually manage these things until—”
“How much?”
“At the divorce, about twenty-seven thousand.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. Marcus became account owner because his employer gave matching contributions.”
Jordan laughed bitterly.
“Of course he did.”
Alicia grabbed her phone.
“I’m calling him.”
Jordan stopped her.
“No.”
“This is different.”
“Yes.”
He pointed at the laptop.
“We need records first.”
Alicia stared.
Jordan realized he had repeated her exact words from two days earlier.
She nodded slowly.
“All right.”
They logged into the 529 provider website.
Alicia no longer had access.
She called customer service.
Because she was not account owner, they could disclose almost nothing.
But one fact emerged.
The account had been closed.
Three months earlier.
Alicia went pale.
“Closed how?”
The representative would not say.
Jordan’s pulse thudded.
A 529 could be withdrawn.
But non-qualified withdrawals could trigger taxes and penalties on earnings.
It was possible.
Marcus could have taken it.
Alicia hung up.
Jordan stared at the dark laptop screen.
“Twenty-seven thousand.”
“That was five years ago. It could have grown.”
“Or shrunk.”
“Yes.”
“Why would he close it three months before I start community college?”
Alicia had no answer.
Jordan’s cracked phone buzzed.
Marcus.
He did not answer.
A text followed.
I need you to stop digging through my finances.
Jordan stared.
Another arrived.
You don’t understand what you’re looking at.
Jordan typed slowly.
Then explain it.
Marcus’s reply came thirty seconds later.
Come over tonight. Alone.
Jordan showed Alicia.
“No.”
“I’m going.”
“Jordan.”
“He wants me alone because he thinks you’re the problem.”
“That is exactly why—”
“I need him to run out of people to blame.”
Jordan stood.
Alicia watched him.
“You promise me something.”
“What?”
“If he starts twisting things, leave.”
Jordan put on his hoodie.
“How will I know?”
Alicia’s answer came immediately.
“When you start defending him against yourself.”
Jordan left.
What he did not know was that Marcus had spent the previous hour preparing documents.
Not bank records.
Not apologies.
Documents showing that, on paper, Jordan’s college fund had not disappeared.
It had been transferred.
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And the name receiving it was one Jordan recognized.
His own.
