Tonya trembled in front of her. Imani didn’t know whether the motion was fear of what would happen now that she’d been found out or rage. She dipped her hand into her purse, checking on the blade.

“Layla is not Nate’s,” Tonya said.

“Well, whose kid is she?”

“Mine.” Tonya’s lips twisted into a sneer.

Anger surged through Imani, electricity returning to a long-dead outlet. Tonya was mincing words, implying her lies rather than speaking them. Layla was hers alone because Nate wouldn’t publicly acknowledge her, not because he wasn’t her biological parent. Did she think Imani too stupid to understand the nuance?

“Why all the secrecy if Nate’s not the father?” Imani rubbed her thumb against the knife’s smooth handle. “First, you deny knowing him at all. Then, after I stumble upon his scholarship for Layla, you admit to having met him but characterize the relationship as strictly professional, which it obviously wasn’t, according to your own friend.”

Tonya shot her a murderous look. “It’s none of your damn business.”

Imani wrapped her fingers around the handle. “As long as you’re in my house, it’s my business. This is the safety of my family at stake.”

“How’s that?” Tonya shook, a tied string under too much tension. “How does my daughter’s father have anything to do with your safety? I told you he’s not in our lives.”

“Because he’s dead, right?” Imani gripped the knife tighter. “What happened? You went to confront him about not paying child support, and he got drunk and belligerent? He ordered you out of the house at gunpoint?”

Tonya’s hands dove under her hat. “Oh my God. Are you kidding me? You think I shot Nate? Why would I even do that if he was funding my life, as you so clearly believe?”

The knife vibrated in Imani’s palm. “Where is Melissa?”

“How would I know? South America? Russia? Anywhere without an extradition treaty is my guess.”

“She had nothing—”

“As long as we’re making up murder theories, let’s look at you and Philip,” Tonya shouted. “You two were the ones with all these fraught ties to them. Nate had invested in Coffre. Obviously, that didn’t work out well for him.”

“What are you talking about?” Imani’s shock loosened her grip on the weapon. Philip had never said anything about taking money from the Walkers. Was this another of his business transactions that he’d thought she hadn’t needed to know about?

“You really didn’t know?”

The question was a slap across Imani’s face, both a wake-up call and an act of aggression. Tonya was underscoring that Philip had been more candid about his dealings with her than with his own wife. Imani felt like a woman accosted in the ladies’ bathroom by a younger girl claiming to know where her man had been last night.