Chapter Twenty-Three
JAMIE
“Dad.”
He’s sitting in front of the TV with a can of beer in his hand, feet propped up on the ottoman. If he wasn’t so goddamn stiff, I might believe he was actually relaxing.
He looks over at me, his eyes lingering on the bright green of my cast before he raises them to meet mine. All I get in response is an arched brow as he sips at his beer. I have to take a deep breath before walking forward, doing my best not to crumple the papers in my fist. They’re already wrinkled and half ruined from Oakley dropping them in the snow as she left and from how many times I’ve looked through them, but they’re still legible for the most part.
“Tell me about Peter Wallace and Chuckles,” I say, holding the papers out to him in a trembling hand.
That finally gets his attention.
He stares at me in shock, almost dropping his beer on the rug. His face shifts to a mask of cool indifference, but his nostrils flare wide in anger. Part of me is surprised that he doesn’t start shouting at me right off the bat, but it looks like he’s so surprised that he can’t find words.
“Oakley gave me these,” I say, tossing the papers in his lap. “Peter Wallace’s nephew is trying to fuck with her family. The paperwork makes it look like you were blackmailing David Montgomery, but she said you two made a bet about Chuckles and he lost. I need to know the truth. I need to hear it from you.”
He looks down at the papers in his lap, but makes no move to touch them. He still has his beer in one hand and the remote in the other. The silence stretches on for so long that I almost expect him to ignore me entirely, but he lifts the remote and turns the TV off.
His hand is shaking when he lifts his beer to his mouth and finishes off the can.
“The Montgomery girl gave you these?” he finally asks.
“Oakley,” I say firmly. “Oakley gave them to me. She talked to her dad about all of it. It’s our turn now. Tell me what happened between you and David Montgomery.”
I’ve never been this blunt with my dad before, never flat out told him what to do. It feels like the right thing to do right now.
“Exactly what she said,” he says. “David and I were friends. We’d make stupid bets on the circuit, low stakes. He won a scratch off for five grand one night, and we made a bet about Chuckles. I picked what I thought was going to be the losing option. It was supposed to be harmless fun.”
My dad looks like a completely different person. He’s usually frowning, or flat out glaring at someone or something. Right now, he looks contemplative and almost soft, like he’s going back to a time in his life when he was less weathered, less weary.
“So what happened?” I ask.
“I won,” he says simply, shrugging. “Chuckles didn’t drink that night, and he made it out before getting trampled half to death for once. David was pissed he lost, got his ass up on his shoulders about it. We argued, and it just snowballed. Never managed to be friends again, and it’s just been too long to fix it now.”
I bite back the argument that immediately springs to my tongue. My dad has been lonely and angry since my mom died, and if his beef with David is as childish as he’s making it out to be, I see no reason that they couldn’t fix it. Sure, they’re both stubborn, crotchety old men, but if they actually gave it a shot, they could make it work.
“What about Peter Wallace?”
His face twists up into the scowl I’m so used to, and he finally picks up the papers in his lap, rifling through them.
“These from him?” he asks. “They’re conversations between David and I, but they’re all cocked up. Half of this isn’t even from our emails.”
“Oakley is— was —friends with his nephew. She doesn’t know if he’s being used by his family or if he’s in on the whole thing, but he’s the one who gave them to her,” I say. “I don’t trust the asshole, but we can’t do anything if we don’t know the whole story.”
He sighs, rubbing a tired hand over his face, and nods.
“I’ve still got stacks of paperwork from Peter Wallace that no one can make heads or tails of,” he says, shaking his head. “We’re all pretty damn sure he put all the money into accounts offshore, but he was careful with it, and his wife’s a big-shot lawyer. None of it ever even went to court because she got the cases thrown out. Bastard’s still walking free, and there’s nothing any of us can do.”
My brows crease in frustration, and I clench my jaw. It can’t just be something none of us can even try to fix. I can’t accept that.
I won’t.
“You still have the paperwork?” I ask. “Can I look at it?”
My dad looks up at me in surprise, but he pushes out of his chair and heads toward his office nonetheless.
“If you want,” he says. “Don’t know what you’re going to do with ten year old bank statements, but go for it.”
He rounds his desk and opens one of the cabinets on the back wall. File after file makes its way onto his desk, and I stare in shock as the pile grows steadily larger. All of this, and still no one can find anything to pin on the guy?
I pull one of the files closer to me. The folder it’s in is stiff with age and probably about a year from crumbling into dust along with the pages inside. I leaf through them carefully, frowning as I check dates against deposit amounts and withdrawals.
“Jesus,” I huff, shaking my head as I reach for another folder. “He really made a mess of this, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” my dad says gruffly. “He was good, I’ll give him that. Even David was confused about whether or not he authorized some of those withdrawals. They were in a tough spot with money, and Peter was supposed to be taking care of the books so David could keep the farm running. He fucked with a lot of good people.”
My lip curls in a sneer, and I trace down one of the lines, scanning through the account numbers. Surely, he had to fuck up somewhere . I can’t just give up and let the guy get away with this, especially if he’s still trying to meddle with Oakley’s family.
“What’s this account?” I ask, tapping at one of the lines.
The account number doesn’t match any of the ones in the other file, and it’s not on the other pages in this file, either. Only one deposit was made into it, but it was for nearly ten grand. It’s in the middle of a bunch of other transactions on the same day, seemingly innocuous other than the amount. My dad leans over my shoulder, a look of confusion on his face.
“I don’t know what any of them are really,” he says. “I closed most of them after he left town in case he had access to anything. There’s a list of all the accounts here somewhere, let me see if I can find it.”
I nod, turning my attention back to the pages. I pull several more files toward me, now searching for that account specifically. I find it in three separate files, all of the records showing large deposits being made in the middle of the day.
My dad breaks my concentration by shoving a page beneath my nose before I can continue scouring through the other files.
“This should have all the account details.”
I snag it from his hands, my blood pumping hot in my veins. I don’t know what exactly it is, but I feel like I’m stumbling closer and closer to something important. There’s the business account for the circuit training my dad does, his personal account, a few savings accounts that have been opened and closed through the years, and my account.
My account ?
I never opened a bank account that was associated with my dad. And the account number doesn’t match mine, either.
I look over to the date it was opened, my eyes blowing wide when I see it.
“Dad.” My voice is shaky, whisper-quiet, and my hand trembles as I trace the line of text. “Dad, this…I don’t know what it is, but this isn’t right.”
He leans over my shoulder, his frown deepening in concentration.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asks.
I dig my finger into the date, black and white print on a brittle piece of printer paper. My heart pounds in my chest at the prospect of finding something new .
“Look at the date,” I say. “This account is in my name, but it was opened when I was six .”
He looks up sharply, blinking in confusion.
“I didn’t open an account when you were a kid,” he says. “Neither did your mom.”
My heart rate triples in the course of a second, and my vision goes blurry for half a second as I force myself to suck a breath in. It can’t be this easy, but maybe this is a step toward uncovering something. Even if it doesn’t put Peter Wallace in jail, maybe it’ll be enough of a threat to keep him away from Oakley’s family.
“I only went through five of those files,” I say, nodding toward the stack of papers on the desk. “Just from the deposits I saw, there’s almost seventy grand in that account. Who knows how many more deposits there are in the other files. What if he was hiding in plain sight this whole time? I bet if I look through the Montgomery’s paperwork, there’ll be an account in one of their names that isn’t theirs, too.”
His brows climb up toward his hairline, a shocked laugh falling from his lips. He opens his mouth, closes it, laughs again. His hand claps down heavily on my shoulder, and I almost tear up at the pure pride I can feel in the gesture.
“Hell, kid,” he huffs. “Maybe we’d have been better off sending you to school for finance than trying to get you in the ring.”
Astonishment pours through me at that statement, and I blink at him incredulously. I didn’t hear that right, did I? Is this just because I may be on to something, or does he actually mean it?
“You always said I was made for the circuit,” I say questioningly. “You said it was what I was good at.”
“Look, son, I’ve been hard on you,” he says, not quite meeting my eyes. “I wanted you to live the life I wanted, and I didn’t think about what you wanted. You were never happy on the circuit.”
I wasn’t. Not for a second.
“I…Dad.”
“It might be too little too late, but let your old man try to fix things, would you? I didn’t give you a chance to find anything else you were good at.” His voice is still rough, but there’s a twinge of a smile on his lips. “Go to school if you need. Start your own business if you want. The town could use a new financial advisor. You’d be good at it. You could take care of your girl.”
Goosebumps break out over my entire body, and I stumble for words uselessly.
“I’ll go talk to David. We’ll clear all this up, and we’ll take everything we can to the police,” he says. “Don’t lose Oakley over this. Your mom wouldn’t ever forgive me.”
I have no idea what to say, so I don’t say anything. All I can think to do is grab him with my good arm and yank him in for a hug. It squishes my arm between us, but I don’t pay attention to the pain.
“Thank you, Dad,” I whisper. “Thank you.”