Chapter 6
Crystal walked into the main house at lunchtime to hear Jenny on the phone. She was about to back out and give her privacy, but then she realized Jenny was speaking to Ashton on the other end.
Jenny looked over at her and nodded her in. “Ashton needs a bank account number that Johanna has set up. Do you know anything about it?”
She stared at her and frowned. “I don’t know anything about the financials.”
“Well, he wants us to try and find the account number.”
She winced. “That feels very much like we’re going against her.”
Jenny ended the call and looked at her, her gaze stern.
“And I don’t know that you realize this, but she had been stealing money from your grandfather’s clients, a lot of money, and Ashton’s rather desperate to pay it all back before he loses everything.
He invested absolutely everything he had into saving this place, and now we have a big problem because Johanna wasn’t supposed to have access to any money, and everything she could come up with over the last few years was supposed to go back into the business to the repay those client accounts.
But apparently, just in the last few days, she’s managed to open a personal account and put a huge chunk of money into that, probably thinking it would be hers and hers alone. ”
Crystal stared at her, miserable to find out that Ashton had been right all along. “Are you serious?” In her mind, she knew it was the beginning of the end for them all.
“Yes, I’m sadly very serious,” Jenny muttered. “And, no, I don’t like talking about family issues, but Johanna’s also come to me for money over the years.”
“Me too,” Crystal shared. “I didn’t know what for, but I didn’t ask. I just assumed Grandpa didn’t give her very much to run with.”
Jenny snorted. “Johanna always had plenty to run with. She was just never very good at not spending it on her gambling.”
Crystal felt everything inside her give way. “So, Ashton was right about all of it?”
“Yes, that’s why he’s moving so fast on all of this.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yes, it’s really bad right now, and he doesn’t even know whether he can save the house or anything else because Johanna’s pretty-well blown it all and left what may be an insurmountable challenge,” Jenny explained.
Jenny sat here, looking older than Crystal ever remembered seeing her.
Jenny had tears in her eyes. “I’m supposed to live here my whole life, and, if I don’t even have that?
… I have no place to go. I was supposed to get one of the small dower houses that everybody is currently living in until I die.
That was always the agreement, but, if there is no house, no land, …
well, my own future at this stage is in question too. ”
“Good God,” Crystal swore. “No wonder Grandma has been so very odd lately.”
“She’s been panicked is what I would call it,” Jenny snapped, her tone bitter.
“I’ve known that woman since she was young—when she first married into the Nelson family—and I’ve seen her through both thick and thin.
I’ve seen her through some times where maybe she could have been a better person and times where she was really trying.
” She snorted and added, “There was a time when she truly loved Alexander, and that’s always been an easy way to forgive her. ”
Crystal nodded in understanding. “Of course. As long as she was happy to look after Grandpa, then—”
“Exactly,” Jenny interrupted, “but then she started gambling, and Alexander’s life shifted in a horrible way.
He too spent everything he had over the last several years just trying to save the family home and the business,” she told Crystal.
“The people working in the offices in town have no idea, but, in the background, it’s always been Ashton and Alexander, trying desperately to keep everything going, to pay back Johanna’s theft.
Working to pay off everything they could, before any harm was passed to the family or to one of Alexander’s clients. ”
Crystal frowned in shock. “Only to find out now that Grandma has stashed a big chunk of change for herself? Doesn’t sound like Grandpa helped her with that, not now that he’s gone missing.”
“Yeah. Probably so she could continue funding her gambling addiction, and that’s a huge issue,” Jenny stated.
Crystal glanced around. “She’s not even out of bed yet. And I don’t know how to help Ashton. I mean, where would Grandma keep that bank information? In her office, maybe?”
Jenny shook her head. “Johanna doesn’t do much in the office anymore, and I haven’t even seen her go in there in a very long time.”
Crystal whispered, “It feels very much like we’re sneaking around into her personal affairs.”
“I know,” Jenny agreed, “so I won’t involve you in this.
I don’t want you to do anything that goes against what you feel is right.
However, I’m thinking about all the people she has ripped off without a thought, and the reality that they’ll find out what she’s done, potentially rather quickly, and that the savings all those clients have worked their whole lives for is potentially all gone? That’s just wrong.”
“Jesus Christ,” Crystal muttered, “do we have any idea how much money is at stake?”
“No, I don’t. I just know that Alexander and Ashton have been constantly funneling money in, and that’s why Ashton now owns this place,” Jenny shared.
“He owns it all, so don’t kid yourself. No matter what the twins say, it is all Ashton’s.
The land, the barns, the houses, the business, it’s all his.
Even after all he’s put in, he knows perfectly well he’s in danger of losing absolutely everything he ever had. ”
With that, Jenny got up, and, with the movements of a woman three times her age, she headed into Johanna’s office, leaving Crystal sitting in the kitchen, coffee cup in her hand, wondering how the hell something like this could even happen, and yet how does it not happen when somebody with issues over money gets access to more money?
They should have stopped Grandma’s access way the hell before she got this far.
For all Crystal knew, maybe they tried. There had been some comments about that at some point in time.
Crystal just didn’t understand how Johanna Nelson, the woman she knew, could continue do this when she knew it was destroying the family.
Then again, did she even care as long as she could keep feeding her addiction?
Crystal had thought about various addictions a lot because of the work that she did on a volunteer basis, seeing how addictions destroyed families. This just seemed to be yet another example, only one very close to home, and that was hard to take.
She heard footsteps and looked up to see Grandma coming down the stairs, with the same regal queen of the manor air that she’d always had, but now that Crystal knew more of what was going on, at least part of it, this behavior was hard for her to accept now.
Johanna frowned at her and sniffed. “Don’t you have something to do?” she asked, with a wave of her hand, as if dismissing her.
“I do,” she replied. “I also was thinking I needed to go to the bank. Do you need to?”
“No, I was just there,” she declared, a smug look on her face. “I won’t ever get to the point where someone needs to take me to the bank. I handle my own affairs.”
Knowing what Johanna had done, and the problems Ashton now faced, Crystal couldn’t even look at her grandmother in the same way anymore.
Johanna poured herself a cup of coffee and turned, staring at Crystal. “I thought you had things to do,” she snapped, glaring at her.
She sighed. “Of course, as you command, my queen.”
“Watch that lip, young lady,” she snapped again. “I don’t have to take that from you.”
Crystal just stared at her, saw the old lady living in some fantasy world that only contained herself, and nodded. “Do we have any update on Grandpa?”
“No, I don’t,” she stated, with another wave of her hand. “He’s probably off canoodling with some young thing somewhere else.”
It was such an incredible thing for her to say that Crystal stopped and stared.
Grandma glared at her. “I’m pretty sure you should be doing something.”
It was as much of a dismissal as she had ever received, and Crystal slowly walked out. She texted Ashton about what Grandma just said.
He called her afterward. “Really?”
“Yes, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I’m not sure I do either,” he admitted, “but I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.
I’ve just left Anderson’s office, and I have to delay my meeting with Roger at the bank, plus getting an update from the sheriff about Grandpa and now Sean.
However, I am about to speak to somebody who picked up a dog, and I’m hoping it will be Sean’s. ”
“That would be good.”
“Did you know the dog?”
“I’ve been around it several times, sure.”
“Good, because I’ll probably bring it back to the property.
So, it would be good to see his reaction if he sees you, and it might help him to adjust. I’m hoping I can use him to track down Sean, even Grandpa.
The War Dog apparently was picked up in the woods and was acting very erratically, so I’m thinking Khan had already picked up Sean’s scent and was trying to find him in the woods. ”
“But … he’s in a wheelchair,” Crystal pointed out.
“I know,” he replied, “but my boss just had another case not long ago with somebody else looking after a K9. In that case some severe elder abuse was going on, and I’m really hoping this won’t be the same thing.”
“Good God,” she muttered, “I would hope not. If anything, Sean would have gone out to do something to help somebody else.”
“Maybe that’s what he did do. Did he and Grandpa know each other?”
“I don’t know. … You know, I think they did.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering myself,” he noted. “Anyway, I’ll let you know”—he had to laugh—“or you’ll see me when I show up with a K9.”
“I hope so.”