Chapter 5 - THE MONEY BETWEEN USI met Amber the next morning at a coffee shop in South Austin.
She wore jeans, a gray sweater, and oversized sunglasses despite the cloudy weather.
Without the red gown and the cold expression, she looked younger than twenty-nine.
Also exhausted.
She sat across from me and didn't remove the sunglasses.
“I know what you think of me.”
“I don't know what I think of you.”
“I watched him hit you.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I keep seeing that.”
“Good.”
She flinched.
I didn't apologize.
Amber wrapped both hands around her coffee.
“When he hit you the first few times, I thought…”
She stopped.
“You thought what?”
“That you were finally getting back some of what you'd done to him.”
I leaned back.
“What did he tell you I did?”
Her answer came slowly.
“That you left him to take care of Elaine while you chased contracts and played retired-war-hero around Texas.”
Some of it was cruel.
Some of it wasn't entirely false.
“He said your wife wanted him to have the house because he was the one who stayed.”
I said nothing.
“He said you agreed.”
“I told him he'd always have a home.”
“He said you signed it over.”
“I didn't.”
Her eyes shifted toward the window.
“He showed me the agreement.”
“The one with the signature I didn't make.”
She finally took off her sunglasses.
Her eyes were red.
“I didn't know.”
I believed that part.
Then I asked the question she had texted me about.
“Yes. I gave Brandon money.”
“How much?”
“Over what period?”
Her face changed.
“Franklin.”
“About ninety-six thousand over twenty-two months.”
She stared at me.
I explained.
The first request had been for fertility treatments.
Eight thousand dollars.
Then there were insurance deductibles.
A plumbing emergency.
A National Guard pay issue.
A short-term loan for a business opportunity.
I had transferred money because Brandon always had a reason and because every reason sounded temporary.
“Fertility treatments?” Amber whispered.
I stopped.
“You weren't doing fertility treatments?”
“No.”
Neither of us spoke.
The coffee shop suddenly felt too loud.
“When did he tell you that?”
“Almost two years ago.”
She closed her eyes.
“We decided not to try until this year.”
That was the moment the betrayal changed shape.
Not bigger.
Wider.
Amber had thought I was taking something from Brandon.
I had thought she was encouraging Brandon to take something from me.
All the while, Brandon had kept each of us in a different room emotionally, telling each one exactly enough to prevent us from opening the door between us.
Amber pulled a folder from her bag.
“My dad wired us a hundred and forty thousand.”
She slid copies across the table.
“He thought it was going into renovations because Brandon told him the house was basically ours.”
“Basically.”
“I know how that sounds now.”
I scanned the statements.
The money had entered an account held jointly by Brandon and Amber.
Within six days, $72,000 had moved elsewhere.
Not to a contractor.
To a brokerage account.
Another $25,000 went to a business bank account.
$18,000 paid credit cards.
Only about $25,000 appeared connected to actual home improvements.
Amber stared at the numbers with me.
“I never looked.”
“Why?”
“Because he handled money.”
The same answer I had given Claire.
Amber laughed once.
It wasn't amusement.
It sounded sick.
“He told me I was bad with finances.”
I thought about Brandon insisting on opening my mail.
I thought about him calling me forgetful when I asked questions twice.
I thought about how grateful I'd been when he started taking over small responsibilities.
“He did the same thing to me.”
Amber looked up.
For the first time since the assault, we weren't sitting on opposite sides of Brandon's story.
We were sitting inside the same one.
I asked about the brokerage account.
She opened her banking app.
The money was gone.
Most of it had disappeared through trading losses over fourteen months.
The remaining transfers led to Tyler Vance's company.
Amber's father believed his loan was secured by Brandon's interest in my house.
There was no interest.
There was no security.
There was only a son who had apparently built his finances on an inheritance that hadn't happened.
Amber covered her mouth.
May you like
Then she whispered something that made me understand why Brandon had looked afraid when I said he owned nothing.
“My dad's loan comes due in six weeks.”
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