Chapter 4: Eight Years of Rent

The bank was on the ground floor of the hotel's shopping arcade, forty steps from the pastry kitchen.

I went on my lunch break with Troy's photo on my phone and my apron still tied around my waist.

A manager in a grey vest walked me to his desk and typed my name into his computer.

He turned the screen and let me read it.

A small-business loan, sixty thousand dollars, approved eleven weeks ago.

Primary borrower, Kayla Doyle.

Co-signer, Joanna Pennock.

"Do you remember signing this, Ms. Pennock?"

"No."

"We have a scan of the signature page."

He brought it up.

It was my name in my handwriting, with the loop on the J.

I looked at the date, and my stomach turned over.

March ninth.

Kayla had set a stack of papers on our kitchen table that night, with yellow flags stuck where I was supposed to sign.

"It's the lease renewal," she'd said. "I've got a pizza in the oven, can you do the flags while I pull it out?"

I had signed the flags.

I'd signed all three of them without reading a word, because she was my best friend.

"This isn't the lease," I said. "She told me it was the lease."

"I can't comment on that," the manager said. "But if you dispute it, you must say so in writing today. After that, the bank assumes you agreed."

I looked at the clock on his wall.

"Give me the form."