Page 5 of Night and Day
“You’re an attorney? Give me some legal advice! I can’t let him get away with this. I can press charges, right?”
“Absolutely. Do you know how he was able to empty your account? Did he steal your password or forge a check—”
“No, he probably walked into the bank and had them give him all the money.”
“They wouldn’t simply give him all the money…” Anton’s eyes narrowed. “Was this a joint account?”
Tamika nodded. “Calvin suggested we get on each other’s account in case something happened to one of us. I think he must have another account somewhere that I don’t know about, though, because he works every day and has money, but there’s only thirty dollars in that account right now.”
“If he was a signatory on the account, there’s nothing you can do,” Anton said quietly.
She knew that, but hearing the words was like a punch in the gut. She’d hoped he would tell her about some obscure law that would allow her to nail Calvin.
“But it was my money!” she exclaimed.
“That’s not the way the law sees it. He had a legal right to that account, which means he could take the money.”
Tamika jumped to her feet. He was saying things she didn’t want to hear. There had to be some recourse. She was going to use that money to pay for marketing and expand her business.
“Are you a criminal attorney?” she asked.
“No. I’m a corporate attorney.”
“Then maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Anton came slowly to his feet. “Actually—”
“I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say. You’re wrong.”
“Tamika, look, I don’t know you, but I don’t want to see you do something that will end in disappointment. Your best recourse is to talk to Calvin and see if he’ll give you the money back. Anything else, you’re asking for trouble.”
“Thank you for your advice. I’ll make my own decisions, like I’m sure you’ll make your own about Melissa.” She headed to the door.
“Tamika, wait.”
Picking up her pace, she ignored him. She had to get out of there. She needed to escape from his pitying looks and deal with this anger that had overtaken her brain. She would cut up all of Calvin’s clothes. Burn all his shit. Empty his account of the thirty lousy dollars he had in there and then start looking for the secret account he clearly had hidden from her.
“Tamika, what are you about to do?”
She yanked open the door as more tears filled her eyes. “Don’t worry about me,” she said breezily over her shoulder.
She couldn’t tell her father because she’d get a lecture, and he’d tell her to come home to Augusta. She was twenty-nine years old, but her father insisted on treating her like a child more often than not. She wanted to live her own life and learn from her own mistakes. She didn’t want to go back to living under his roof. And she didn’t want to hearI told you sobecause he’d never liked Calvin and didn’t approve of them moving in together.
Why couldn’t she be more like her sister? Camela had been smart and driven. Tamika was a screw up.
She ran down the three steps in front of the apartment and hopped in her car. She didn’t look back once as she sped across the parking lot and out the gate.
3
With the phone squeezed between her ear and shoulder, Tamika flitted around the bedroom, tossing her personal belongings into boxes. She’d had every intention of cutting up and burning Calvin’s clothes and shoes, his precious football trophies, and anything else she could get her hands on, but her friend Layla had talked her out of taking such drastic action.
“Where are you going to go?” Layla asked.
She was one of Tamika’s best friends. The other member of their trio was Dana. The three had been best friends ever since they met playing softball in an all-female league. Though they no longer played ball, they remained friends, their different personalities balancing out the friendship circle.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
Not only was she broke, the landlord had stuck an eviction notice on the door this morning. Apparently, Calvin hadn’t paid rent in the last two months, though she’d given him her share. There was no way she could catch up the rent on her own, and even if she did, she couldn’t afford the one-bedroom apartment by herself. She wished she could. The neighborhood was nice and the apartment was a nice size. Calvin—who had been using the dining room as an office for his graphic design business—had allotted half of the room as a makeshift warehouse, where she sometimes put together shipments for her cosmetics company, TamCam Cosmetics.
