Chapter 3 #2
“Nope and hasn’t been for some time,” he stated forcefully.
“She was also trying to get money out of the household accounts, which do have money in them because I have to pay for everybody to maintain this place.” She looked up, surprise in her gaze.
He continued, “Jenny has some control over that. When Jenny wouldn’t give Grandma any money, Grandma went to the bank manager.
You can tell that’s caused a certain amount of problems with Jenny. ”
“Good God,” Crystal muttered, hanging her head. “So, you trust the money with Jenny but not with Grandma? How the hell did all that happen, and how come I never noticed?”
“Jenny pays the bills,” he explained. “And she’s resourceful, resistant to all threats.
Something that Grandpa was not. I have spoken with Jenny many times over the last few years, and she knows perfectly well that this place is mine.
She also knows that I have been supporting everybody, but I’m sure you can understand that’s something I won’t continue to do. ”
She winced and nodded. “If that’s the case, your cousins are about to become a problem.”
“They have always been a problem,” he stated, “and none of that has anything to do with why I came.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean, why you came?”
He smiled. “Friends of mine needed help tracking down the whereabouts of a retired K9 War Dog that disappeared from somewhere in this town. They run a program to monitor the status of these dogs for the War Department. This particular War Dog was reported missing, and they asked me to look into it for them.”
She blinked, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, I know,” he muttered, “hard to imagine. But these people are friends of mine, plus I am and always will be an animal lover, particularly of the K9 dogs that spent their military lives keeping American soldiers alive,” he shared.
“I have no intention of not doing what I can to help them, so, if you have seen a Malinois-shepherd cross in this area, about eight years old and quite well trained, let me know. It’s probably running loose at this point since it’s apparently gone missing, or at least that is the rumor. ”
“What will you do to find it?”
“I’ll need to track it down while I’m here.” When she just stared at him, he sighed. “I know, things are as convoluted as ever.”
“How?” she asked. “How is it that you can show up right in the nick of time, yet have your own damn problems to deal with?”
He looked at her, surprised, then a smile broke across his face.
“We always have our own problems to deal with, Crys,” he noted.
“That’ll never change. The trick is to solve them without making everybody else pay for our mistakes.
And hopefully get away with whatever you need to get away with until you can make it happen. ”
Crystal grimaced. “So, now the question is, did Grandma’s mess have anything to do with Grandpa’s disappearance?”
He looked at her and smiled. “I just found out that part—supposedly—as to why she was extra desperate to get her hands on some money. She needs to win back a whole pile of money in the hopes that she can get Grandpa released.”
Crystal sank down to the couch, all thoughts about tea completely gone. “I’m sorry?”
“Yeah, you heard me,” he said, nodding at her.
“Grandma got herself in too deep with her gambling debts. She wasn’t just borrowing from us, from the company, she was borrowing from, well, …
certain lenders in the gambling scene. She got in too deep and couldn’t get any back out to pay up the bookies.
They don’t like somebody playing with their money who apparently doesn’t have a way to pay it back.
I don’t know who it is, but they apparently grabbed Grandpa, at least according to Grandma. ”
“But he’s not the one who’s responsible,” she protested.
“Well, he’s responsible enough,” Ashton pointed out, “because he would never stop her. And, while Grandpa and I have both been working to pay back all the money she stole, there is still an arrearage on Grandpa’s investments accounts, as well as Grandma’s bookie account.”
“But is that really on you?”
“My inheritance, my issue. I need a little bit of time to verify where everything stands and to figure out how much is still missing.”
“What did Grandma say about all that?”
He sighed. “She’s adamant that, if I just gave her a little bit of money, she could go gamble it into more and could resolve this problem … again.”
“Jesus,” she murmured, as she stared at him in shock. “I feel as if I’ve been right here and have never understood all the undercurrents going on around me.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” he stated, “because some of these undercurrents are rough to navigate. I had quite the blowup with Grandpa over it all when I came back six years ago. He was struggling to make some payments to clear her troubles and to pay out money to some of his investment clients, who wanted to withdraw funds from their accounts. However, Grandma had stolen from them without anyone suspecting anything. That’s when I realized that he still hadn’t taken away her access to those client accounts. ”
“So—”
“Back then she hadn’t taken very much more, but she had certainly taken some more.
So I put a lock on all Grandpa’s client accounts, so she couldn’t get any more money out.
At least I thought so, but she just told me that she got it from Grandpa anyway.
God knows what extortion scheme she’d come up with to get him to do it. ”
Crystal swallowed back her tears and her fears as she thought about how horrible and completely irresponsible Grandma had been and how all of it fell on Ashton’s shoulders.
“Well, not to ask an overly personal question, but I presume it wasn’t a whole lot of money if you were capable of paying it off. ”
“I haven’t paid it all off,” he replied, his tone grim. “Part of the problem is that, back then, she had taken out a lot of money. Now we were very close to getting it paid off. So it seemed to be a good thing when she put that big chunk back in, until she went to take it back out again.
“That’s when she realized she couldn’t take money out.
So, for four years, she had been good, relatively good, abiding by her agreement, a written contract which she signed, all wrapped up in a confidentiality agreement.
No one knew about it—except her, Grandpa, me, and the attorney who drew it up.
She abided by her obligation to put money back in and to never trigger any withdrawals, until … ”
“Until she broke that agreement, so the question would be why.”
“She says she broke it because they are holding Grandpa hostage.”
She blinked at him several times and then whispered, “Oh my God, he’s been kidnapped by loan sharks?”
“Something like that,” he muttered. “At least, that’s what she says. I can’t trust her. So, yeah, I don’t really know what to tell you.”
She just stared at him, not sure what to even say. “What can you do?”
“What Grandpa should have done a long time ago,” he said. “A deputy is on the way.”
She closed her eyes and whispered, “Oh, hell.”
“Yeah. Oh, hell, it is,” he agreed in a bitter tone.
“I have no problem moving the money around and paying off the ransom—if Grandpa truly is being held for ransom—but now we’re in a completely different scenario.
There is no guarantee that any loan shark kidnapper will hold up their end of the bargain and let him go, … alive and well.”
She nodded. “I agree totally, but wow.”
“Oh, I know,” he muttered, with a smile. “Believe me that I know. What is worse is that I don’t think Grandma’s bookies have Grandpa. I just hope and pray that it’s not an inside job.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You do understand that Glenn and John will be all pissed off and angry, thinking that none of this is true, right?”
“Yeah, but Grandpa is missing.” He looked at her with a meaningful expression, and she knew what that meant too.
“Right. They’ve been happy enough to just let the old man wander off.”
“Meanwhile, he’s stuck somewhere, and Grandma’s getting desperate, trying to figure out how to get some money so she can go gamble some more and make enough to fix everything.
At least I hope that was her intent and not something totally selfish.
And the bank manager, of course, wouldn’t let her get more money. ”
“Thank God for that,” she said.
“Yeah, thank God for that,” Ashton repeated. “I still owe him a phone call and an explanation, plus a plan going forward because she’ll continue to try to access the accounts.”
Crystal nodded. “That’s what addictions do. They drive people to do whatever they can do for their next fix. You had already informed the bank, right?”
“Yeah, I did, but we are dealing with a financial institution. Plus, she was loosely considered part owner of Grandpa’s investment firm as his wife, so it can get confusing.
Roger’s been with the bank for a long time, and he’s certainly willing to help, but the bank will not take on the liability for Grandma’s thefts. ”
“And she has proven herself to be a real problem.”
“Exactly, so this is the explanation for the grumpy homecoming you experienced when I first got in.”
She closed her eyes and whispered, “I don’t even know what to say.” He laughed that deep rumbling tone, and it brought back so many memories.
“Yeah, how do you think I feel?” he asked.
She looked at him, unable to hide the admiration. “And you’ve been paying off Grandma’s gambling debts and outright theft of Grandpa’s client accounts?”