Chapter 8: Mia’s Price
By the time Emily reached Thomas’s house, the sky beyond the windows had begun to pale. She kept her phone in her hand, Claire’s photographs of the loan application still open on the screen. Kevin’s name sat at the top of the page. Beneath it, Emily’s own signature pretended to be hers.
Mia stood in the kitchen with a mug between both hands. She looked up as Emily came in, then set the mug down without drinking.
“You went out.”
Emily closed the door. “I saw the application.”
Mia’s eyes flicked to the phone.
“Don’t ask how. Tell me why you helped him.”
“I didn’t help him forge your name.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Mia’s mouth tightened. She glanced toward the hall, where the house remained quiet. Thomas’s bedroom door was closed.
“Keep your voice down.”
“My name is on a loan application against Thomas’s home. I’m done keeping quiet for people who knew.”
Emily turned the phone toward her. Mia stared at the image, at the signature, at the line identifying Emily as guarantor.
“I didn’t know about that,” she said.
“You knew about the loan.”
“I knew there was a plan.”
“And you knew my name was on it?”
“No.”
Emily lowered the phone but didn’t put it away. “Then tell me what you did know.”
Mia’s fingers curled around the edge of the counter. For a moment she looked less like the woman who had laughed on the station platform and more like someone searching for a way out of a room with no open door.
“Kevin said Dad agreed to use the house,” she said. “He said the paperwork was already taken care of.”
“Thomas says he never agreed to sell it or borrow against it.”
“He said the same thing to you?”
“He said he gave Kevin permission to handle bills and repairs. Nothing more.”
Mia looked down. “Kevin told me Dad understood.”
“Did you ask Dad?”
The silence stretched between them.
“No.”
Emily felt her hand tighten around the phone. “You didn’t ask because you didn’t want to know.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What would be fair, Mia? That I thank you for taking Kevin’s word over his father’s?”
Mia’s face flushed. “I thought Dad had agreed. Kevin said it would get him out of trouble, and that he’d pay the loan back.”
“His trouble.”
“He said it was temporary.”
“And what did you get?”
Mia looked at the dark window. The first gray light touched her reflection, making her seem farther away than she was.
“He said he’d pay my debts.”
Emily didn’t move. “With the loan money?”
Mia nodded once.
“How much?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You were willing to put Thomas’s house at risk for money you didn’t even know the amount of?”
“I had bills. I had people calling me every day.” Mia’s voice sharpened, then fell. “Kevin said he could help.”
“So you helped him hide the affair. You helped him tell me I was imagining things. And when he needed a way to get money, you decided Dad’s home was his to use.”
“I didn’t decide that.”
“You chose not to ask.”
Mia looked at her then, anger rising where the uncertainty had been. “You think you’re the only person he lied to?”
“No. I think you knew he was lying to me and helped him do it anyway.”
The words landed hard. Mia’s jaw shifted, but she didn’t answer.
Emily brought up the investigator’s report. The dates were printed beside the images and receipts, each one a small, cold marker in the months Kevin had been disappearing. She held the phone out.
“Look at them.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“Look.”
Mia’s gaze dropped to the screen. Her face changed as Emily scrolled—not at the images, but at the dates. The affair had been going on long before Kevin told her the house was in danger. Long before he claimed Thomas had agreed. Mia had been covering for him while he built the lie.
“You knew,” Emily said. “When you told me he was working late, you knew he wasn’t.”
Mia’s face hardened. “I knew about Claire. I didn’t know he was going to use the house.”
“You knew he was lying to his wife. You watched him make me doubt my own eyes, and you helped.”
“I thought it would stop.”
“When?”
Mia had no answer.
Emily glanced toward Thomas’s closed door. She imagined him waking to find the family already arranged around Kevin’s version of events, the originals laid out, the story told before he could object. The thought made her stomach draw tight.
“Does Kevin have the packet here?”
Mia’s eyes lifted, guarded. “Why?”
“Because he intends to put it in front of Thomas and call it routine. I need to know what room he’ll use.”
“He’s setting up the den.”
“Is it locked?”
Mia didn’t answer right away. Then she reached into the pocket of her sweater and drew out a small brass key. It sat on her palm between them.
“The side door opens into the den,” she said. “This one opens the lock.”
Emily stared at the key but didn’t take it.
“Why are you giving me this?”
Mia’s mouth trembled before she pressed it flat. “You need to see what he put in there.”
“Is the packet there?”
“I don’t know.” Mia curled her fingers around the key, then opened them again. “I’m not telling you I’ll stand up in front of everyone. I’m not promising anything.”
Emily understood the boundary for what it was: Mia offering just enough to ease her own conscience, not enough to risk losing what Kevin had promised.
“I’m not asking you to promise,” Emily said. “I’m asking you to stop pretending you had no choice.”
Mia placed the key on the counter. Emily picked it up. The metal was warm from Mia’s hand.
For one brief, foolish second, Emily wanted Mia to say something that might make the years between them feel less poisoned. Instead, Mia looked away.
The hurt didn’t vanish because a key had changed hands. Emily slipped it into her coat pocket.
Then Mia picked up her phone.
“Who are you calling?” Emily asked.
Mia’s shoulders drew back. The softness was gone.
“He needs to know you saw the application.”
“You said you didn’t know I was named.”
“I didn’t.” Mia’s thumb moved across the screen. “But if he finds out from someone else, he’ll know I hid it from him.”
Emily watched the phone in Mia’s hand. “You just gave me the key.”
“I’m giving you a chance to get out of this before it gets worse.”
“For whom?”
Mia’s eyes shone, but her voice turned cool. “You’re pregnant. You don’t need to be in the middle of a fight with Kevin.”
“I was in the middle when he put my name on that loan.”
Mia pressed the phone to her ear. “Kevin? She saw the papers.”
Emily’s pulse jumped. She reached for the front door, but before she could turn the knob, tires crunched over the driveway gravel.
A car door slammed.
May you like
Mia lowered her phone. The front door swung inward, and Kevin stepped inside, his gaze fixed on Emily’s phone.
“You saw the application,” he said.
