Kelly’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
He appreciated the absence of an excuse without feeling better.
Marlene’s car waited at the curb. Evan stepped toward it, then turned back.
“Don’t send next month’s money,” he told Kelly. “Find out where the rest went first.”
Linda stood beneath the porch light with the torn page still in her hand.
“You’ll understand when you have people depending on you.”
Evan settled the microphone case against his chest.
“I already do.”
He got into the car before she could tell him that those people did not include himself.
CHAPTER 3 – His Name on the Line
Marlene’s spare room smelled of clean cotton and old books.
Evan lay awake beneath a quilt, listening for sounds that required something from him. At six, he gave up and opened his banking app.
He canceled the scheduled transfers to Linda. The rent had always gone into her account, labeled exactly as she instructed. Rent. Electric. Phone.
He downloaded every statement.
Then he changed his passwords.
At breakfast, Marlene set toast beside his laptop.
“You can leave the desk assembled.”
“I’ll find somewhere.”
“I know. You can leave the desk assembled while you do.”
He stared at the toast until she sat down.
“Did you know?”
“That she was taking Kelly’s money? No.”
“That she thought I owed her everything?”
Marlene rubbed a crumb between her fingertips.
“I heard her call you dependable. I liked hearing it. It let me think she was managing.”
“She was.”
The crumb fell.
“Yes,” Marlene said. “She was.”
By noon, Kelly had forwarded the entire message history. Linda had described rent increases Evan had never heard about, repairs the landlord supposedly refused to cover, and months when Evan was allegedly short.
Evan opened his statements beside the messages.
Every payment had arrived in full.
Kelly called while he was comparing dates.
“She told me you were borrowing from her.”
He leaned back until the chair touched the wall.
“I’ve bought shoes with holes already in them.”
On the other end, Kelly drew a sharp breath.
“I need you to come Thursday. I want my money back. I don’t want her saying something different to each of us.”
Evan agreed to one meeting.
He spent the next three days moving his work into Marlene’s spare room and arranging the transfer of the phone account. Sophie brought the last box of his clothes. Caleb returned the screws from the desk in a labeled envelope.
Neither asked him to call Linda.
On Thursday, Kelly’s children stayed with her sister. Sophie and Caleb waited in the kitchen when Evan arrived. Marlene placed a notebook on the table.
Linda had made coffee.
No one touched it.
Evan set down copies of his transfers.
“Kelly paid you to save for housing. I paid the household bills. There shouldn’t have been a shortfall.”
“There are expenses you don’t see.”
“Then show us.”
Linda brought out a folder.
Evan expected utility statements.
Instead, she slid a printed account notice toward him.
His name appeared at the top. Beneath it was a balance of eleven thousand eight hundred dollars.
He read the account number.
It belonged to no card he had opened.
“What is this?”
Linda smoothed the corner.
“The account I used when things got difficult.”
“In my name?”
“I was going to handle it.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt a fraction.
