Chapter 3 - A Deed With Two Names
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Tasha enlarged the page.
It looked official enough to frighten her and unfinished enough to create questions. There was no county recording stamp. No notarized signature. No evidence that ownership had actually changed.
But her address was there.
So was the legal description of the property.
And in the section identifying proposed grantees were Marcus Reed and Kiara Johnson.
Denise stood behind Tasha.
“What is that?”
“A draft deed.”
Marcus exhaled.
“It was never filed.”
Tasha turned slowly.
“You made it.”
“No. A document service prepared it.”
“That distinction matters to you?”
“It matters legally.”
His answer was so precise that Tasha felt another piece slide into place.
The man who had once told her he barely understood the fraudulent documents in his old criminal case suddenly cared deeply about technical distinctions.
“Why would a document service prepare a deed transferring my house to you and Kiara?”
“It wasn’t transferring it.”
Tasha looked back at the page.
“Marcus.”
“It was part of an asset structure.”
Denise barked out a laugh.
“An asset structure?”
“For the business.”
“In my sister’s house?”
Marcus’s frustration surfaced.
“You don’t understand business.”
Denise took a step.
Tasha caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
She was not protecting Marcus anymore.
She was protecting Denise from becoming the easiest person in the room to blame.
Marcus glanced toward the front door.
Tasha noticed.
“You want to leave?”
“I think everybody needs to calm down.”
“You’re not taking the phone.”
“It’s my property.”
“And it contains records involving money borrowed against my property.”
Marcus stared at her.
“You can’t just keep it.”
“Then call the police.”
The challenge hung between them.
Marcus did not move.
That told Tasha something.
She looked at Kiara.
“Did you know about this deed?”
“No.”
Marcus immediately said, “She didn’t.”
Tasha watched Kiara’s face.
The surprise seemed real.
At least something was.
“Why is her name on it?”
Marcus rubbed the back of his neck.
“It was an option. KJ Supplies had vendor status. There were tax and financing reasons.”
“You were going to put my niece on my deed for tax reasons?”
“It wasn’t final.”
“Before or after you got her pregnant?”
“Tasha.”
“Before or after?”
He looked away.
She returned to the phone.
The document had been sent through email.
The sender was an address belonging to Briggs Document Solutions.
Tasha forwarded the email, the deed, the message thread, and several bank screenshots to her own account.
Marcus watched.
“You’re going through private communications.”
“I helped finance your commissary for eight years. I think privacy stopped being our biggest problem about twenty minutes ago.”
Then she forwarded everything to a second address.
Her friend and attorney, Vanessa Cole.
Marcus saw the name.
“You called Vanessa?”
“Not yet.”
“Tasha, don’t make this bigger than it is.”
Denise stared at him in disbelief.
“My daughter is carrying your baby.”
“I’m talking about the business.”
“My sister’s house is on a deed with my daughter.”
“It’s a draft.”
Tasha whispered, “You keep saying that.”
She placed the phone down.
“Get out.”
Marcus blinked.
“This is my house too.”
“No.”
“We’re married.”
“My name is the only name on the recorded deed. I bought this house three years into your sentence. You signed nothing because you were incarcerated and had no money in it.”
“I live here.”
“Tonight you don’t.”
Marcus’s expression hardened.
“Tasha, you can’t throw away sixteen years because you’re angry.”
The number almost made her laugh.
“Sixteen years?”
“We had a life before prison.”
“And apparently you had another one during it.”
“I made mistakes.”
“A mistake is missing an anniversary. A mistake is sending the wrong invoice. You built a company with my niece while I was driving to visit you.”
“I didn’t build anything with her.”
Tasha pointed at the phone.
“Her name is on the LLC.”
“That was logistics.”
“Her name is on a draft deed.”
“Logistics.”
“She’s pregnant.”
Marcus finally raised his voice.
“I said I messed up!”
Silence slammed into the room.
Kiara flinched.
Tasha did not.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“I’m sorry.”
Tasha studied him.
For eight years, she had imagined his first year home.
They would argue about ordinary things.
Cabinet doors.
Money.
Work.
Whose family to visit during holidays.
She had prepared herself for trauma, resentment, adjustment, even intimacy problems.
She had never prepared for discovering that the future she was building had been occupied by someone else before Marcus even crossed the prison gate.
“You need to pack a bag,” she said.
Marcus stared.
“Tonight.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
For the first time, the cruelty of reality almost made her answer, Ask Kiara.
She stopped herself.
The pregnancy was not a weapon.
Kiara was not a location where Marcus could be deposited.
“I don’t care.”
Marcus’s nostrils flared.
“I’m on supervised release. My residence is registered here.”
“Then call your probation officer and update it.”
That silenced him.
Marcus had three years of federal supervised release following his sentence. He had spoken constantly about avoiding violations.
Tasha had spent months making the house suitable for his approved residence.
Now the arrangement became one more chain she had fastened around herself.
Marcus looked toward Kiara.
She shook her head before he spoke.
“You can’t stay with me.”
Denise turned on her daughter.
“He wasn’t about to.”
Kiara’s face crumpled.
“Mama, please.”
“No. Not tonight.”
Tasha closed her eyes.
“Stop.”
Denise fell silent.
Tasha looked at all three of them.
“This room has had enough lying for one night.”
She picked up the ultrasound envelope and handed it to Kiara.
“That is yours.”
Kiara accepted it with shaking hands.
Tasha then gathered Marcus’s prison letters.
She did not know why.
Perhaps she could not bear leaving them scattered beneath the evidence of everything that had followed.
Marcus watched her tie the ribbon again.
“Tasha.”
She looked at him.
“I did love you.”
The past tense landed exactly where he did not intend it to.
Tasha nodded once.
“I know.”
His face softened with hope.
Then she finished.
“That’s what makes what you did useful.”
He frowned.
“Useful?”
“Now I know love was never the part of you I misunderstood.”
She walked toward the staircase.
Marcus called after her.
“What did you misunderstand?”
Tasha stopped halfway up.
She looked down at the man she had defended for eight years.
“Your innocence.”
Marcus’s face drained.
Denise noticed.
Kiara noticed.
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Tasha did too.
And suddenly the conviction from eight years earlier was no longer safely buried in the past.
