“What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Khloe.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course.”
“Maya, please.”
“What is in the box?”
“Documents.”
My heart skipped.
“What documents?”
“I can’t explain through the door.”
I stared at him through the camera.
He looked different from the photographs Khloe posted.
Tired.
Unshaven.
His expensive clothes were wrinkled.
For once, he didn’t look like the confident businessman who had spent months telling everyone he was about to launch a successful company.
I unlocked the door.
But I kept the chain attached.
“Come in.”
He stepped inside.
His eyes immediately traveled around my condo.
For a second, I wondered whether he was thinking about the same thing my mother had thought.
How much money does she have?
Then he looked at me.
“I owe you an apology.”
I said nothing.
He placed the box on the kitchen counter.
“I should have talked to you before your parents asked.”
“What exactly should you have told me?”
“That we were in trouble.”
“You were already in trouble.”
He nodded.
“We are.”
“How much?”
He looked down.
“I don’t know anymore.”
“That’s an interesting answer.”
“I mean it.”
He rubbed his face.
“There’s more debt than Khloe knows.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“Some of it is business debt.”
“Some?”
He nodded.
“Some is personal.”
“How much?”
“I don’t have an exact number.”
“Then give me an estimate.”
He swallowed.
“More than sixty thousand.”
I stared at him.
“You’re telling me you’re more than sixty thousand dollars in debt after receiving almost thirty thousand from your father?”
“Yes.”
“And twenty thousand from my parents?”
His eyes widened.
“You know about that?”
“My mother told me.”
He looked away.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
He hesitated.
“Khloe doesn’t know about all of it.”
I stepped back.
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t steal anything.”
“I didn’t accuse you of stealing.”
“I used the business account for personal expenses.”
“How much?”
“About eighteen thousand.”
I stared at him.
“Eighteen thousand?”
“I was going to replace it.”
“When?”
“When the business started making money.”
“And did it?”
“No.”
I looked at the box.
“What is in there?”
He opened it.
Inside were envelopes.
Statements.
Contracts.
Invoices.
Loan agreements.
And something else.
A folder with my name written across the front.
I didn’t touch it.
“What is that?”
Grant looked uncomfortable.
“Your name came up in one of the conversations.”
“My name?”
He nodded.
“Your mother told us you would probably help.”
The room went completely still.
I slowly reached for the folder.
Inside was a printed email.
The sender was my mother.
The recipient was Grant.
The date was six weeks earlier.
I read the first line.
Don’t worry. Maya has plenty saved.
I read it again.
Then again.
My chest tightened.
I kept scrolling.
There were several emails.
Mom had been discussing my finances with Grant.
My salary.
My promotion.
My condo.
Even the fact that I didn’t have children.
One sentence made my hands go cold.
She doesn’t have anyone depending on her, so she can afford to help.
I looked at Grant.
“She wrote this?”
He nodded.
“There are more.”
I kept reading.
Another email.
Once Maya understands how serious this is, she’ll do the right thing.
Then another.
Don’t ask her yourself. Let me and her father handle it.
My eyes burned.
This wasn’t an emergency request.
It had been planned.
Discussed.
Strategized.
They had decided how to approach me.
When.
What number to use.
Who would make me feel guilty.
I closed the folder.
“Why are you giving me this?”
Grant’s face changed.
“Because I don’t want to keep lying.”
“Why now?”
He looked toward the windows.
“Because I made a terrible mistake.”
“What mistake?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said something that made my blood run cold.
“The thirty thousand isn’t actually for the debts you think it is.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Your parents told you it was to catch up on bills.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not the whole reason.”
“Then what is the reason?”
Grant looked directly at me.
“They need the money by Friday.”
“Why?”
He swallowed.
“Because someone is threatening to take the business.”
I frowned.
“What does that have to do with Khloe?”
“Everything.”
“How?”
Grant’s voice dropped.
“Because the business isn’t really mine.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He reached into the box and pulled out a document.
Then he placed it in front of me.
“This company belongs to someone else.”
“Who?”
He looked at me.
“Your father.”
My heart stopped.
“My father?”
Grant nodded.
“And there’s one more thing you need to know.”
He pushed another document toward me.
“This is why your parents suddenly decided to visit you.”
I looked down.
It was a loan agreement.
My name was printed on the final page.
But I had never signed it.
And beneath my name was a signature that looked frighteningly familiar.
It looked like mine.
PART 4
For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
I stared at the document on my kitchen counter.
My name was there.
My address.
My date of birth.
My employment information.
And beneath it, a signature that looked enough like mine to fool someone who wanted to believe it was real.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I had never signed it.
“What is this?” I whispered.
Grant looked miserable.
“A loan agreement.”
“I can see that.”
“It was supposed to secure the business.”
“With what?”
He didn’t answer.
I looked at the second page.
My eyes moved slowly over the legal language.
Then I saw it.
Collateral.
My condo.
I pushed the document away as if it had burned me.
“My condo?”
Grant nodded.
“Your father told the lender that you had agreed to use it as collateral.”
My chair scraped backward as I stood.
“My father cannot use my condo as collateral.”
“I know.”
“Did he tell the lender that I agreed?”
“Yes.”
“And this signature?”
“I didn’t create it.”
I looked at him.
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“You brought this to me.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know something.”
Grant lowered his eyes.
“I know your mother had the documents.”
My heart sank.
“Mom?”
He nodded.
“She was the one communicating with the lender.”
I felt sick.
My mother.
The woman who had raised me.
The woman who had told me that family protected family.
The woman who had cried when I refused to give Khloe thirty thousand dollars.
She had apparently been discussing my income and my property with a lender.
And somehow, someone had placed my signature on a document I had never seen.
I picked up my phone.
“I need to call the bank.”
Grant immediately stood.
“Wait.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because if you call them before understanding everything, they may freeze the account.”
“What account?”
“The business account.”
“I don’t care about your business account.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
He swallowed.
“Because your father used your name to guarantee it.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I grabbed the edge of the counter.
“How much?”
“Seventy-five thousand.”
I stared at him.
“For a business you don’t own?”
He nodded.
“And my condo is collateral?”
“Yes.”
“Does my father own the business?”
Grant shook his head.
“The paperwork says he does.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the company was registered under his name.”
“Why?”
Grant didn’t answer.
I understood before he spoke.
“Because your credit wasn’t good enough.”
He nodded.
“And my father’s was?”
“Yes.”
I laughed once.
It wasn’t funny.
It was the kind of laugh that comes when reality becomes so absurd that your mind doesn’t know what else to do.
“So let me understand this.”
I began counting on my fingers.
“You and Khloe spent money you didn’t have.”
“Yes.”
“You borrowed from Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“You borrowed from my parents.”
“Yes.”
“Your father put money into the business.”
“Yes.”
“My father registered the business under his name.”
“Yes.”
“And then my mother tried to convince me to give you another thirty thousand dollars.”
“Yes.”
“And somewhere along the way, somebody forged my signature and used my condo as collateral.”
Grant nodded.
I looked at him.
“Why are you telling me now?”
His face collapsed.
“Because I found out what they were planning.”
“What?”
“They weren’t going to use the thirty thousand to pay your sister’s debts.”
“Then what?”
“To stop the lender from calling the loan.”
I stared at him.
“So they wanted me to pay their business debt.”
“Yes.”
“And they were going to tell me it was for Khloe.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
For the first time, I wasn’t angry.
