Chapter 4 - Forty Thousand Dollars
Angela grabbed the phone.
“This is Marcus’s mother.”
Rebecca paused.
“I’ll need Marcus’s permission to speak with you.”
Marcus put the call on speaker.
“You have it.”
Rebecca continued carefully.
“The request was submitted electronically using identifying information associated with the beneficiary.”
“What information?”
“Date of birth, partial Social Security number, address, and security verification.”
Marcus stared at us.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know,” Angela said.
Rebecca continued.
“The request also included a scanned signature.”
“Was any money released?” I asked.
“No.”
My knees almost weakened.
“Why not?”
“Because the trust restricts early distributions. Anything above educational expenses requires trustee review.”
Angela pressed a hand to her chest.
“Thank God.”
Rebecca said, “We’ve frozen electronic access and flagged the account.”
Marcus whispered, “Can you tell where the request came from?”
“I can’t provide investigative details over the phone, but our fraud department will preserve everything.”
We arranged to meet Monday.
After the call ended, Marcus sat motionless.
“He already had my information.”
Angela sat beside him.
“Apparently.”
“How?”
Then I remembered.
“The car.”
Marcus looked at me.
“What?”
“When we bought your Honda, we brought paperwork to the dealership.”
His Social Security number had been included on financing documents before we decided to pay cash for most of the car.
But Darren hadn’t been there.
Angela shook her head.
“There are a hundred ways he could have found pieces of it.”
Marcus looked sick.
“I gave him my birth date.”
“When?”
“He asked about my birthday.”
“That isn’t your fault.”
“I told him what bank I use too.”
Angela touched his arm.
“Marcus.”
“He asked like normal questions.”
“That’s how people get information.”
My voice came out harder than I intended.
Marcus looked at me.
I softened it.
“You didn’t know.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You knew.”
“What?”
“You knew there was something wrong with him.”
“I knew what your mother told me.”
“And I treated you like garbage.”
I looked away.
“We’re not having that conversation while you’re scared.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want an apology you’re giving only because Darren disappointed you.”
Marcus flinched.
I hated hurting him.
But I meant it.
If he apologized, I needed him to understand what he was apologizing for.
Not just switch fathers because one had failed him.
Angela squeezed his hand.
On Monday, we met Rebecca Hall and the trust attorney, Mr. Grant.
He had known Walter.
The moment Angela showed him Darren’s photocopy, his expression changed.
“Where did this come from?”
“Darren Collins.”
Mr. Grant looked genuinely stunned.
“He should not have this.”
“You know him?” Marcus asked.
“I met him once.”
“When?”
“About ten years ago.”
Angela sat straighter.
“What?”
Mr. Grant looked at her.
“Your father came to my office because Darren contacted him.”
Angela stared.
“He never told me.”
“He asked Walter for money.”
Marcus went still.
“How much?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“For what?”
“He claimed he wanted to get his life together and return to his son.”
Marcus looked down.
My heart hurt for him.
“What did Grandpa do?”
Mr. Grant hesitated.
“He offered conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“Treatment for gambling, steady employment, and six months of consistent contact with Marcus before any financial help.”
Marcus looked up.
“And Darren?”
“He disappeared again.”
Silence.
Mr. Grant opened an old file.
“Walter asked me to document the meeting.”
He handed Marcus a letter.
This one had Walter’s full signature.
Walter J. Collins.
Marcus read silently.
Then tears filled his eyes.
“What does it say?” Angela whispered.
Marcus handed it to her.
Walter had written:
If Darren truly returns for Marcus, help him only after he proves he can show up without being paid to do it.
Angela started crying.
Marcus stood and walked toward the window.
I wanted to follow him.
I didn’t.
After a minute, he spoke.
“So Grandpa gave him a chance.”
“Yes,” Mr. Grant said.
“And he still left.”
“Yes.”
Marcus wiped his face.
Rebecca changed the subject gently.
“We also traced the early distribution attempt.”
Everyone looked at her.
“It originated from a device using public Wi-Fi.”
“Where?”
“A coffee shop.”
She slid a printed photograph across the table.
Security footage.
A man sitting with a laptop.
Darren.
Marcus closed his eyes.
“That’s him.”
Rebecca continued.
“The request included an uploaded copy of Marcus’s driver’s license.”
Marcus’s eyes snapped open.
“What?”
“Do you still have your license?”
He pulled out his wallet.
“Yes.”
I remembered something.
“At the motel.”
Marcus looked at me.
“Did he leave the room?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“When he went to get ice.”
“Did you leave your wallet?”
His face drained of color.
“On the table.”
Darren had photographed it.
Mr. Grant leaned forward.
“We need law enforcement involved.”
Marcus nodded.
“I’ll tell them everything.”
That afternoon, Detective Harris met us at home.
Marcus explained the motel.
The second phone.
The trust.
The request.
Then Harris asked, “Did Darren ask you to do anything regarding David?”
Marcus looked at me.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“He wanted me to convince Mom to remove David from the house.”
Harris raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
“He said the house should belong to me and Mom.”
Angela whispered, “It already belongs to me.”
Marcus continued.
“He said David was going to convince her to sell it.”
I stared at him.
“I have never suggested selling this house.”
“I know that now.”
Detective Harris asked, “Anything else?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Darren wanted me to get papers from David’s office.”
My stomach tightened.
“What papers?”
“Financial papers.”
Angela turned toward him.
“Marcus!”
“I didn’t do it.”
“When did he ask?”
“Before the argument.”
My chest felt tight.
“So when you told me I wasn’t your father…”
Marcus looked ashamed.
“He had already been talking about you for weeks.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because he said you’d stop me from seeing him.”
Detective Harris wrote something down.
“What exactly did he want from David’s office?”
Marcus swallowed.
“Bank statements.”
“Why?”
“He said he wanted proof David was stealing from us.”
Angela stood.
“He was trying to learn what David had.”
That realization settled over the room.
My accounts.
My business.
Our savings.
The trust.
Darren wasn’t just coming after Marcus’s inheritance.
He was mapping the whole family.
Detective Harris took the black phone as evidence.
Before leaving, he looked at Marcus.
“If Darren contacts you, do not meet him.”
Marcus nodded.
“He may try to make you feel guilty.”
Another nod.
“He may say this investigation is your fault.”
Marcus looked down.
“It isn’t,” Harris said.
After he left, the house became quiet.
Marcus approached me.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him.
“For which part?”
His eyes filled.
“All of it.”
I waited.
He continued.
“For saying you weren’t my father like it meant you were nothing.”
My throat tightened.
“For acting like everything you did didn’t matter.”
I didn’t rescue him from the discomfort.
He needed to say it.
“I was angry because Darren made me feel stupid for loving you.”
That surprised me.
“He said I had replaced him too.”
Marcus wiped his eyes.
“Like I betrayed him by calling you Dad when I was little.”
I finally stepped closer.
“You never betrayed anybody by loving someone who showed up.”
Marcus’s face crumpled.
Before I could say more, Angela’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed almost immediately.
“What?”
Marcus and I looked at her.
She put the call on speaker.
Detective Harris’s voice filled the kitchen.
“We found something while checking Darren’s recent activity.”
“What?”
“He didn’t return to town alone.”
Angela gripped the phone.
“Who is with him?”
Harris paused.
“A man named Victor Lane.”
I had never heard the name.
Angela had.
Her face went white.
“Angela?” I asked.
She whispered, “Victor used to collect Darren’s gambling debts.”
May you like
And suddenly, forty thousand dollars sounded less like greed.
It sounded like a deadline.
