That answered a question that had bothered me all night. Six hundred and twenty thousand was the sale price, not all cash in their pocket; there had still been closing costs. But even after those costs, they had walked away with more money than I had ever held at once.
“I thought the investment made sense,” he said. “Marisa showed us projections.”
“Did someone independent look at them?”
He shook his head.
I put a spoon beside his bowl. “If you want help making a plan, bring the actual numbers. Not a list from memory.”
“You think she’s lying?”
“I think neither of you can tell me what you have left. Until you know that, no one can help you plan.”
He ate with his shoulders hunched. When he was a boy, I used to think every silence meant he was listening. I knew better now. Sometimes it meant he was waiting for me to finish fixing something.
“I signed the transfer,” he said abruptly. “The three hundred thousand. I need you to know that.”
I had been angry enough with Lennox to make him helpless in my mind. His words stopped me.
“Then you’ll have to help find out what you bought.”
Three nights later they returned with a laptop, a folder, and a grocery bag full of unopened mail. Lennox looked furious about the bag. Terrence had insisted they bring it.
“This is humiliating,” she said.
“You can do it somewhere else,” I told her. “I’m not entitled to your accounts.”
She stayed.
We sat at the same table where Terrence once did his spelling homework. I brought out a pad and wrote down the sale proceeds after costs, the credit card payments, the temporary rent, and the purchases they could document. I kept each number in its own line. I did not let Lennox call the car for her mother an emergency without writing down what it had cost.
The figures were ugly, but ugliness wasn’t the worst part. Against the $300,000 transfer was a printed page headed Investor Overview. It showed a picture of a bright storefront, a projected return, and Marisa’s signature.
“Where’s the agreement?” I asked.
“That’s the agreement,” Lennox said.
“How much of the business do you own?”
“Thirty percent. She said thirty.”
The page did not say thirty percent. It did not say shares, loan, repayment date, or what would happen if the business closed. Terrence scrolled through the email that had accompanied it.
“She said the lawyer was finishing the documents.”
“Four months ago?”
Lennox reached for her phone. “I’ll call her.”
Marisa did not answer. Lennox tried again, then sent a text with both thumbs, pressing so hard I could hear her nails strike the glass.
I did not know whether they had been cheated or merely reckless. I knew enough to stop pretending a conversation at my kitchen table could settle it.
“You need someone who does business disputes,” I said. “And you need the bank records, not only this page.”
Terrence stared at the screen. Lennox said, very quietly, “She wouldn’t do that to me.”
It was the first sentence she had spoken that sounded frightened.
