Chapter 4 - The Four-Thousand-Dollar Lie
“Excuse me!” I called out, keeping my voice bright, polite, and completely non-threatening as I walked across the manicured grass.
The man stopped, holding the retriever’s leash loosely in one hand. He offered a polite, suburban smile. “Good morning! Can I help you with something?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” I said, smoothing down my denim skirt. “I’m Darcy. My brother, Travis Vance, owns this property. I was just passing through the neighborhood and noticed the cars out front. I wanted to make sure everything was alright with the lease.”
The man’s smile widened, relaxed and friendly. “Oh! You’re Travis’s sister! He mentioned you might be around the area. I’m David. My wife, Sarah, is up on the porch.”
“Nice to meet you, David,” I said, my voice steady, though my blood felt like ice water. “Travis didn't mention when your term started. He’s been so busy with... well, with everything.”
“Oh, we’ve been here since the middle of February,” David chuckled, reaching down to pat his dog’s head. “My company relocated us from San Diego to oversee the new corporate campus in Westlake. We signed an executive corporate lease through June of next year. Travis has been fantastic to work with. Truly an incredible landlord.”
*February.*
He had leased the house the exact same week he showed up on my front doorstep with three children and four duffel bags.
“An executive lease,” I repeated, maintaining the facade of a pleasant, conversational sister. “That’s wonderful. He mentioned it was a full-furnished agreement?”
“Turnkey,” David nodded enthusiastically. “Everything included. Utilities, high-speed fiber, weekly pool and lawn maintenance. We’re paying forty-four hundred a month, which for this neighborhood and this square footage is a steal compared to what corporate housing in downtown Dallas was charging. Travis even left the playroom fully stocked for when our grandkids come visit. Top-notch guy. Tell him the master shower valve he had replaced last week works like a dream now.”
*Forty-four hundred dollars a month.*
Every single month since February.
Four thousand four hundred dollars deposited directly into his private account while I skipped my car’s safety inspections, while Junie did her long division on a greasy baking sheet beside the trash can, while I divided a single package of chicken breasts into three portions so his three children could have second helpings of dinner.
“I’ll certainly tell him,” I said through teeth that felt like glass. “He’s always taking care of the details.”
“Have a blessed Sunday, Darcy!” David waved cheerfully, continuing his walk down the quiet, shaded sidewalk.
I stood in the middle of the street for a full minute, listening to the birds chirping in the pristine oaks.
Forty-four hundred dollars a month.
That was seventeen thousand six hundred dollars he had pocketed in cash since the day he looked into my eyes on my front porch and said: *“Just the weekend, Darcy. I have nowhere else to go.”*
He hadn't been cast out into the cold by a vindictive ex-wife. He hadn't been locked out by an unyielding judge.
He had looked at his mortgage, looked at his four-bedroom luxury house, looked at his little sister’s two-bedroom bungalow in the working-class flats of Fort Worth, and realized he could run a high-margin corporate rental business by simply outsourcing the cost of feeding, housing, and babysitting his entire family onto my eighty-four-dollar bank account.
I walked back to my car, got into the driver’s seat, and closed the door.
Junie looked at me, her eyes wide with a child's acute awareness of adult rage. “Mom? Are you mad at me?”
I reached over, cupped her sweet, soft cheek with my trembling hand, and pulled her in for a tight, fierce hug.
“Never at you, Junie,” I whispered into her hair. “Never at you. But things are going to change. Today.”
I put the car in reverse, backed out of the cul-de-sac, and pulled into the parking lot of a nearby Walgreens.
I took out my phone, found the contact card I had looked at the night before, and pressed the call button.
This time, when the phone rang, I didn't hang up.
“Hello?” a brisk, composed female voice answered on the third ring.
May you like
“Lindsay,” I said, staring at the suburban horizon in my rearview mirror. “It’s Darcy. We need to talk about where your children have been sleeping for the last four months.”
***
