Chapter 2 - The Morning Ledger
Tasha did not sleep.
She lay on the edge of the bed while Malcolm remained on the couch, the television finally dark.
At 5:43 a.m., she gave up pretending.
She carried her laptop to the kitchen table and opened their joint checking account.
The numbers looked familiar until she stopped looking at balances and started looking at transfers.
There were four.
$1,200.
$950.
$2,500.
$1,650.
All sent within six weeks.
Recipient: RPH HOLDINGS.
Tasha stared.
She clicked the emergency savings account.
Three months earlier, they had $14,247.
Now they had $5,918.
Her hands became cold.
Malcolm appeared in the hallway.
“You going to work this early?”
Tasha turned the computer toward him.
“What is RPH Holdings?”
His expression changed so quickly she almost missed it.
Then his face became blank.
“Nothing.”
“You sent more than six thousand dollars to nothing?”
He opened the refrigerator.
“I was moving money around.”
“Where?”
He took out orange juice.
“Can we do this after coffee?”
“No.”
He poured himself a glass.
“Tasha, I told you I’m figuring things out.”
“You told me you lost your job.”
“I did.”
“You told me our savings were fine.”
“They are.”
She laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Our savings lost eight thousand dollars.”
“Money comes back.”
“From where?”
Malcolm slammed the refrigerator door harder than necessary.
“You think I don’t know we need money?”
“I think I don’t know anything.”
That stopped him.
Tasha stood.
“I don’t know why rent is overdue. I don’t know what bank account made a three-thousand-dollar payment. I don’t know where our savings went.”
Her voice lowered.
“And now I don’t know whether anything you’ve told me since you lost your job is true.”
Malcolm looked wounded.
Which somehow made her angrier.
He leaned against the counter.
“I was trying to protect us.”
“From what?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Tasha’s eyes narrowed.
“Try me.”
He looked toward the bedroom.
“Not before work.”
“You have nowhere to be.”
The words struck him.
His jaw flexed.
Tasha immediately regretted the cruelty but refused to apologize for the truth beneath it.
Malcolm grabbed his glass.
“I’m not doing this when you’re trying to humiliate me.”
“You’re humiliated because I’m asking where our money went?”
“You’re talking to me like I stole it.”
“Did you?”
He froze.
It lasted less than a second.
But she saw it.
Tasha slowly sat back down.
“Malcolm.”
“I did not steal from you.”
“Then show me RPH Holdings.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Open it.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
It was the first direct refusal.
Not avoidance.
Not defensiveness.
Refusal.
Tasha closed her laptop.
“All right.”
Malcolm frowned.
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
She stood, picked up her work badge, and left.
At lunch, she called the apartment management office.
The leasing manager, a woman named Sandra, pulled up their ledger.
“Yes,” Sandra said, “you currently owe twenty-four thirty.”
“But I paid sixteen hundred on the fifteenth.”
“I see the deposit.”
Tasha exhaled.
“Then why are we behind?”
There was keyboard tapping.
“Because there was also an attempted payment of three thousand dollars from an account ending in 1189. It was returned.”
“I don’t recognize that account.”
“Mr. Reed submitted the payment online.”
Tasha closed her eyes.
“Does that affect the money I already sent?”
“There was a chargeback on the account.”
“What chargeback?”
Sandra hesitated.
“A prior payment of fourteen hundred and eighty dollars was disputed by the bank.”
Tasha’s stomach dropped.
“Which payment?”
“The previous month’s rent.”
For a moment she could not speak.
“So last month wasn’t paid either?”
“Not successfully.”
“Why wasn’t I notified?”
“Notices were sent to the email on file.”
“Mine?”
Sandra read it.
It was Malcolm’s.
Tasha leaned back in her desk chair.
“When was the contact email changed?”
“About five weeks ago.”
The week Malcolm claimed he had been laid off.
Tasha’s pulse began to pound.
“Can you send the entire account ledger to my email?”
“Of course.”
“And restore my email as the primary contact?”
Sandra hesitated.
“Both leaseholders can update contact details, but I can add yours.”
“Do it.”
Her inbox chimed thirty seconds later.
Tasha opened the ledger.
Two months of strange activity.
Returned payments.
Late charges.
A payment attempt from an unknown account.
Contact changes.
Malcolm had been controlling what she saw.
Not merely forgetting.
Controlling.
She forwarded everything to her private email.
Then she checked their credit card.
There were purchases she had assumed were routine household expenses.
$213.48.
$487.99.
$129.50.
But the merchant names meant nothing.
She searched one.
Luxury sneaker marketplace.
Another.
Gaming electronics.
The third.
Storage facility.
Tasha stared at the screen.
A shadow fell over her cubicle.
Her supervisor, Renee Parker, stood there.
“You okay?”
Tasha quickly minimized the page.
“Yes.”
Renee studied her face.
“You’ve made two processing errors this week.”
Tasha swallowed.
“I’ll fix them.”
“I know you will. But whatever is happening outside this office, don’t let it cost you the thing paying for your life.”
That sentence stayed with Tasha all afternoon.
At 6:17, she left work.
Instead of going home, she drove to Kendra’s townhouse.
Kendra opened the door wearing slippers and suspicion.
“You look like you found something.”
Tasha handed her the printed bank statement.
Kendra read the transfer name.
RPH HOLDINGS.
Her face changed.
Tasha saw it.
“You know what that is.”
Kendra said nothing.
“Kendra.”
Her cousin slowly lowered the paper.
“I know what Malcolm told me it was.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
Tasha stopped breathing.
Kendra closed her eyes.
“Tasha, before I say anything else, you need to understand—I thought I was helping your marriage.”
“What did you do?”
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Kendra looked ashamed.
“I gave your husband three thousand dollars.”
