Chapter 4 - The Secret Lease
By noon, the Cape May sun had burned off the morning fog, turning the streets into shimmering corridors of salt air and heat. I hailed a local cab and asked the driver to take me to 414 Beachfront Way.
"Just wait at the curb for five minutes," I told the driver, handing him a twenty-dollar bill. "I just need to pick up my luggage."
"Take your time, lady," he said, turning down his radio.
The rental house looked even more chaotic in the harsh daylight. Two inflatable pool rafts were pinned against the front porch railing by the wind. An empty pizza box was wedged into the shrubs near the driveway. And there, sitting squarely on the damp, patchy grass beside the mailbox, was my pink hard-shell suitcase.
They hadn't even had the decency to put it under the porch roof.
I stepped out of the cab and walked across the lawn. Before I could reach the handle, the front screen door banged open with a violent shudder.
Carson stepped out onto the porch. He was wearing cargo shorts and the brand-new, tags-still-attached fishing shirt he must have bought along with his rod. His face was blotchy and red.
"You've got a lot of nerve showing your face here," he snarled, walking down the wooden steps toward me.
Behind him, Paige appeared in the doorway, holding a plastic tumbler of iced tea, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Garrett was lounging in a porch rocker, watching with a heavy, arrogant sneer.
"I didn't come to see you, Carson," I said, grabbing the handle of my suitcase. "I came to get my things."
"You're not going anywhere until you fix this," Carson said, stepping directly into my path. He lowered his voice, his eyes darting frantically toward the cab idling at the curb. "The rental agency called me two hours ago. They said the card declined. They said if the final balance isn't paid by three o'clock, they're locking the electronic keypads and reporting the lease for breach of contract. Brenda, what did you do?"
"I moved my money," I said clearly.
"Your money?!" Paige shouted from the porch, loud enough for the cab driver to turn his head. "You're his wife! You live in the same house! You're going to get us all evicted because you're throwing a hissy fit over some laundry?"
I didn't look at Paige. I kept my eyes locked on Carson.
"Tell them, Carson," I said softly.
He swallowed hard. "Tell them what? Brenda, please. Just transfer the $3,200 back. We can talk about everything else later. We'll go out to dinner tonight. Just you and me. I swear. I'll make it up to you."
"Tell Garrett who actually paid the first $6,400 on this house," I insisted.
Garrett stopped rocking. His beer can paused halfway to his mouth. "What are you talking about?"
Carson’s face lost all its color. "Brenda, stop. Don't do this."
"Tell him, Carson," I repeated, my voice ringing across the tidy suburban lawn. "Garrett thinks he's staying here out of the goodness of his own heart. He thinks *he* invited *us*. He doesn't know that you maxed out your personal credit line in March, took out a predatory cash advance in May, and promised to cover the final third using my overtime savings just so you could look like the wealthy younger brother."
Garrett stood up from the rocker. The smug grin vanished from his face. "Carson? What is she talking about? You said this was a perk through your firm’s client network. You said your boss let you have the house for peanuts."
Paige came down two steps of the porch, her eyes narrowing. "Wait. You told us you paid five hundred bucks total, Carson. You said Garrett just had to pay for the gas and the boat fuel."
Carson looked like a man standing on a trapdoor waiting for the lever to be pulled. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"He lied to all of us," I said, speaking with the clear, clinical precision of someone reading an annual balance sheet. "He wanted you two to think he was a high roller. But he didn't have the money to back it up. So he decided that I would pay the remaining $3,200, and to make sure Paige didn't complain about the house being messy, he promised her that I would be her full-time maid for two weeks."
Paige’s jaw dropped. She looked at Carson, then at Garrett, the anger on her face shifting from smug entitlement to sudden, visceral confusion. "Carson... you told me Brenda *wanted* to do the cooking. You said she felt bad she couldn't contribute financially, so she wanted to take care of the house!"
"You both used me," I said, looking back and forth between them. "You constructed a convenient little fantasy where I was the workhorse and you were the royalty. But here's the reality: The card is declined. The joint account has a balance of twelve dollars. And the rental agency already knows that the unauthorized occupants on the property exceed the legal limit."
Carson lunged forward, grabbing my wrist. "What did you say?"
"Let go of me," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper.
The cab door opened behind me. The cab driver, a burly man with tattoos running down his thick forearms, stepped out onto the gravel. "Everything alright over there, miss?"
Carson instantly released my wrist, stepping back as if burned. "I... Brenda, please. What did you tell the agency?"
"I called them this morning to inform them that my name was fraudulently attached as a secondary guarantor on the rental agreement," I said. "And I mentioned that there are currently eight people and two unregistered dogs staying in a property permitted for six maximum."
Paige gasped, dropping her tumbler. It shattered on the porch steps, splashing sticky brown tea over the white paint. "Our dogs are inside! Garrett, she called the owners!"
Garrett cursed loudly, tossing his beer can into the grass and storming toward Carson. "You idiot! You told me you cleared the dogs with the landlord! I’ve got three thousand dollars of fishing gear in the garage!"
"I thought I could handle it!" Carson yelled, backing away from his brother with his hands raised defensively. "I was trying to do something nice for the family!"
"With my money!" I called out.
I grabbed the handle of my suitcase, turned on my heel, and walked toward the cab.
"Brenda!" Carson shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. "Brenda, don't leave! You can't do this to me! I'm your husband!"
I didn't turn back. I hoisted my suitcase into the trunk, climbed into the back seat, and shut the door.
"Where to, miss?" the driver asked, looking at me through the rearview mirror with a mixture of shock and profound respect.
May you like
"Back to *The Grand Victorian*," I said. "And please, take the scenic route along the water."
***
