Chapter 5: The Man Who Knew Too Much
I pointed at the phone.
"He's messaging you," I said.
Madison reached for it, but I was closer.
I picked it up before she could and read the notification on the lock screen.
*Ryan: Don't say anything to them.
I'll handle it.*
I set the phone back down and looked at her.
"He knows you're here," I said.
"Right now.
He knows you're talking to us."
"That's not—"
"How does he know that, Madison?"
She pushed back from the table and stood up.
"You don't understand what's going on."
"Then explain it to me.
Because from where I'm standing, the man Daniel just described as a known fraudster is telling you to stay quiet while a lawsuit lands at our front door."
"Ryan didn't do anything wrong."
"He took forty-six thousand dollars."
"The supplier took it.
Ryan was a middleman.
He got burned too."
"Did he." It wasn't a question.
She crossed her arms.
"You've already decided I'm lying."
"I've decided I don't have enough information," I said.
"Which is different.
But that message suggests Ryan Garrett knows you're in this apartment right now, which means he's been in contact with you this whole time you've been living here."
She said nothing.
"Did he know you were staying with us?"
Silence.
"Madison.
Did Ryan Garrett know you were at this address for the past four months?"
"He knew I was in Chicago."
"That's not what I asked."
She sat back down.
Her arms stayed crossed, but something in her posture shifted — a tightening, like she was bracing for something.
"He knew the neighborhood," she said finally.
"Not the exact address."
"Until the summons."
She looked up.
"The summons lists our address," I said.
"Which you registered as your legal address without telling us.
Which means Carter Briggs's attorney now has this address.
Which means Ryan Garrett, who you've apparently been in contact with this entire time, also has it."
The bedroom door opened.
Daniel came out with his phone in his hand and a look on his face I hadn't seen before — not anger, not disappointment.
Something more focused than either.
"Frank wants to know if Madison has had any contact with Ryan Garrett since she arrived in Chicago," he said.
Madison and I looked at each other.
Daniel read the room.
"That's a yes."
"It's not what it sounds like," Madison said.
"Frank also ran a quick search." Daniel looked down at his phone.
"Ryan Garrett has two prior civil judgments against him in Ohio.
One in 2019, one in 2021.
Both for the same pattern — taking investment deposits for a distribution business, providing false account documentation, then claiming the supplier defaulted." He looked up.
"He's done this before."
The air went out of Madison's posture all at once.
"I didn't know about the judgments," she said.
"But you knew him well enough to stay in contact with him for four months while living in our home."
"He said he was going to fix it.
He said he was going to get the money back from the supplier and pay Carter directly and make it all go away."
"And you believed him."
"I didn't have another option."
Daniel set his phone on the counter.
"Here's what Frank told me.
If Ryan Garrett used your name and your connection to this address to establish credibility with Carter Briggs — if Briggs can show that Garrett represented you as being backed by a legitimate Chicago business — then the fraud claim doesn't just touch you.
It could touch this address.
My name."
Madison's chin came up.
"That won't happen."
"It already started happening the moment you registered this apartment as your legal address without our knowledge." His voice didn't rise.
It stayed flat and even, which was harder to listen to than shouting.
"You brought this here, Madison.
Whatever Ryan Garrett is or isn't, you brought his mess into our home."
"I was going to fix it before it got this far."
"It's already this far."
She looked at the table.
Then at her phone.
Then at the window, like she was calculating something.
"I need to call him," she said.
"You're not calling Ryan Garrett from this apartment," Daniel said.
"Daniel—"
"Not from this apartment.
Not tonight." He picked up the summons from the counter where he'd set it.
"Tomorrow morning, you're going to sit down with Frank.
You're going to tell him everything — all of it, from the beginning.
And then we're going to figure out how to separate our name from whatever this is."
Madison's jaw tightened.
"And if I don't?"
Daniel looked at her steadily.
"Then you find somewhere else to stay tonight."
The word *tonight* landed differently than *pack your things* had that morning.
More final.
More quiet.
Madison picked up her phone.
She looked at Ryan Garrett's message one more time.
Then she set the phone face-down on the table.
"Fine," she said.
"Tomorrow."
But when I went to bed that night, I lay awake thinking about the way she'd looked at that window.
May you like
Not like someone who had given in.
Like someone who was already planning her next move.
