Chapter 9 - Before the Fall
“You knew?”
Malcolm sat at the kitchen table.
“I was on a final warning.”
“For how long?”
“About a month.”
“And you told me everything at work was fine.”
“I thought I could fix it.”
Tasha laughed bitterly.
That sentence again.
The anthem of their collapsing marriage.
“I can fix it.”
“I was fixing it.”
“I thought I could fix it.”
Every lie required a future miracle.
“What was the warning for?”
“Attendance.”
“Only attendance?”
Malcolm hesitated.
“No.”
Tasha waited.
He finally said, “Outside business activity.”
“RPH?”
“Partly.”
“What else?”
“I was using company vendor contacts.”
Her stomach tightened.
“For what?”
“Sneaker inventory.”
Tasha stared.
“You were using your employer’s contacts for your side business?”
“They had shipping relationships.”
“That sounds like a conflict of interest.”
“It was.”
“And you knew.”
“Yes.”
“Were you stealing?”
“No.”
His answer came immediately.
Tasha believed that part.
“What exactly happened?”
Malcolm rubbed his palms.
“I started buying liquidation pallets through a vendor one of our warehouse managers knew. Shoes, electronics, returns.”
“For resale.”
“Yes.”
“I thought if I could build enough inventory, I could leave the job eventually.”
“But you got caught.”
“My supervisor found emails I sent from the company account.”
“And warned you.”
“Yes.”
“Then you kept doing it.”
Malcolm looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
Tasha stared toward the living room.
The boxes in storage.
The second console.
The sealed television.
Inventory.
Not random shopping.
But not income either.
“How much money did you make?”
“At first? About three thousand.”
“And then?”
“I reinvested.”
“All of it?”
“Most.”
“So your profit became more boxes.”
“Yes.”
“And when work warned you?”
“I thought they were overreacting.”
Tasha shook her head.
“You keep treating boundaries like insults.”
He looked up.
“What?”
“My boundaries. Your employer’s boundaries. The lender’s rules. The lease.”
Her voice hardened.
“Every time someone says no, you decide the rule is unfair because your intention is good.”
Malcolm’s face tightened.
“I was trying to become independent.”
“You were trying to skip the boring part.”
“What boring part?”
“Building something honestly.”
He leaned back.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
Tasha blinked.
“What?”
“You like structure. You like being told what the steps are.”
“And?”
“I don’t want to spend twenty years waiting for somebody to promote me.”
Tasha stared at him.
“You think that’s what I’m doing?”
“I’m saying we’re different.”
“No. You’re saying my stability is small because your chaos has bigger dreams attached.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s what you believe.”
Malcolm stood.
“Tasha, I am not your enemy.”
“Then stop making me discover your choices after they become my consequences.”
He had no answer.
Later that night, Tasha opened the lender documents again.
She compared dates.
Authorization letter: August 18.
Malcolm’s termination: August 21.
First $9,000 loan disbursement: August 22.
Second $9,000 disbursement: August 26.
RPH transfer: August 27.
Then something else caught her eye.
The first disbursement had not gone directly to RPH.
It went to a checking account ending in 1189.
The same account used for the failed three-thousand-dollar rent payment.
Tasha walked into the living room.
“What account ends in 1189?”
Malcolm stopped typing on his laptop.
He looked at the screen.
Then at her.
“My business account.”
“For what business?”
He hesitated.
“Fourth Quarter Resale.”
Tasha almost laughed.
Of course.
Fourth quarter.
The phrase that had become their private insult without either of them realizing it.
“You opened a business account?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“You never told me.”
“I told you about reselling.”
“You told me you sold a few shoes online.”
“It grew.”
“Into what?”
“An LLC.”
Tasha stared.
“You have another company?”
“Technically.”
“And the lender put eighteen thousand dollars into it?”
“Temporarily.”
Tasha’s jaw tightened.
“Show me the statements.”
Malcolm looked away.
“No.”
The word returned.
Not shame.
Resistance.
Tasha stepped closer.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re already looking for reasons to destroy everything.”
“I am looking for facts.”
“You’ll twist it.”
“You mean I’ll see it.”
Malcolm stood.
“I’m done being interrogated.”
Tasha’s voice dropped.
“Then I’ll subpoena it if I have to.”
His eyes widened.
She surprised herself too.
But she meant it.
“I have an attorney now.”
“You’re really turning our marriage into a case file.”
“No.”
Tasha picked up her badge and purse.
“You did that when you made evidence necessary.”
She left.
At Kendra’s townhouse, they sat at the kitchen counter going through screenshots.
Kendra pointed to the business-account number.
“I can search the state corporate registry.”
They found Fourth Quarter Resale LLC.
Organizer: Malcolm Reed.
Registered address: the storage facility.
Created fourteen months earlier.
Then Kendra frowned.
“Why does this name look familiar?”
“What?”
“RPH Holdings.”
She searched again.
Reed Property Holdings LLC.
Loretta Reed.
Devon Reed.
Formed two years earlier.
Kendra opened the filing history.
Then went still.
“What?”
“There was an amendment submitted four months ago.”
“Adding Malcolm?”
“No.”
Kendra turned the laptop.
The amendment removed Loretta as managing member.
Devon Reed became sole manager.
Tasha stared.
“Does Malcolm know?”
“I don’t think so.”
Then Kendra opened another public record.
A deed.
Three months earlier, Loretta had transferred the duplex to Reed Property Holdings LLC.
Which meant the house was no longer personally hers.
And RPH was controlled by Devon.
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Malcolm had not been funding his mother’s house.
He had been pouring Tasha’s money into his brother’s company.
