Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Kate was still shaky as she made her way home from the San Leandro BART station, a short fifteen-minute walk from her parents’ house.
High school had just let out, with knots of teenagers clogging the sidewalks, or cars driving by with the bass bumping so loud it made her already brewing headache pulse in sync with the pounding beat.
In the adrenaline crash, now that the immediate danger had passed, she could still picture Thomas’s shocked face as she shoved the billionaire into his lobby water feature.
Good. Screw him, she mentally snarled, jamming the key into the front door. Did he think she was an idiot? That the boys in the basement were prisoners out on furlough on some “work program?” That the starving and beatings and everything else were somehow “okay” because of that?
Of course, did you see them being beaten? Her sneaky logical brain asked. Do you really think that old guy meant he was going to kill you if you talked?
Doesn’t that sound a little over the top?
She stepped in, eager to kick off her low-heeled pumps, call Prue, and convince her to grab a drink. Lord knew Kate needed one—and she needed to talk to her best friend even more.
“Oscar, goddamn it, you owe me.”
Kate froze in the act of dropping her bag on the floor. That was her father’s voice. What was he doing home at this hour? He should’ve been on shift, down at the police station.
And why was he yelling at Uncle Oscar?
“Rita and I loaned you money to keep that cockamamie publishing company afloat,” he said, his voice low and ragged. There was a pause. “Yeah, I know you went under. I know you declared bankruptcy. But I’m not a goddamned bank, Oscar. You don’t just get say ‘whoops, too bad’ to your family.”
Kate winced. They’d loaned her uncle money?
She loved Uncle Oscar dearly, even while he drove her up the wall with his antics.
She had worked closely with him for four years, and admired the work that he was trying to do, the idealism behind it, even though he was more about the concepts and less about the execution.
Most of all, she loved the books that they had put out, the people they had helped.
That said, nobody knew better than Kate—you should never loan Oscar cash. She’d learned that the hard way –four grand in savings forked over to keep him “afloat,” only to find it went to the racetrack and not the publishing company.
And now, her father was complaining about also loaning Oscar money?
God, she hated irony.
“Don’t do that,” her father growled. He sounded like he was on the kitchen phone: she could hear the thud of his footsteps and knew he was pacing. “Don’t throw Katie in my face. Nobody twisted your arm. You didn’t have to hire her.”
Katie found herself rooted to the spot.
Was her uncle claiming that he was forced to hire her?
He wouldn’t have had the company as long as he did if I hadn’t been working there! Her heart pounded with the indignity of it… even as a little knot of doubt started to tighten in her stomach.
Had her uncle lied to her, as well? She’d thought she was making a difference. She’d made all sorts of improvements to his systems. She’d worked with his suppliers when none of them had wanted to deal with his tantrums and antics.
Had she simply been deluding herself about her own competence? After all, despite her best efforts, the company had still gone under.
Worse—had her uncle encouraged her delusion, because her parents had paid him to?
“In fact,” her father continued, “it would’ve been better if she’d gotten a real job, instead of acting like a flunky to you hippie weirdos. Maybe then she’d understand what it means to actually make a living in the real world!”
Kate gasped inaudibly at the slap of her father’s careless words as her eyes stung with tears.
Do they really think I’m that useless?
Of course, she’d just gotten fired from her latest temp job, although obviously she would have quit anyway.
She had good reason. Her torn shirt was a testament to that, plus the whole “talk-and-you’ll-be-sorry” threat.
But the bottom line was, she had been struggling to get just a temp job for six months.
And she wasn’t exactly thriving outside of a family-owned company.
What, exactly, did that say about her?
She heard her father sigh heavily. He sounded closer. She backed towards the front door, out of his line of sight.
“Oscar, you know ordinarily I wouldn’t be asking you for the loan back,” he said wearily.
It was true: he’d often said he’d jump off the Bay Bridge before he asked Oscar for a thing.
“But right now, I’ll just say it. I just got laid off.
Goddamned budget cuts, and they’re forcing me to retire.
The twenty-five thousand dollars Rita and I loaned you would come in really handy right now, because…
well, I’m afraid we’re going to lose the house. ”
Kate leaned against the front door, blood rushing in her ears.
Twenty-five thousand? He’d loaned Oscar twenty-five thousand?
And they might lose the house?
Nausea swirled in the pit of her stomach in a slow wave. She swallowed hard, straining to hear.
There was another long pause, another deep sigh. “Whatever, Oscar. I should’ve known better than to call, really.”
Of course Uncle Oscar wouldn’t help. She felt shame, like a cement block on her chest.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be visiting Ma at the home this week, either?” Her father’s dry, humorless chuckle sounded like sandpaper. “Yeah, you’ll try. You always say you’ll try. See you around.”
She was going to talk to Uncle Oscar, that was damned clear. Possibly with a tire iron.
But first things first. She took a deep breath, started to head for the kitchen… then stopped, again, when she got to the doorframe.
Her father was sitting at the kitchen table. His heavy frame was slumped down, his salt-and-pepper hair trembling, his face in his hands. She could see his broad shoulders shaking, ever so slightly… heard the small, gruff sounds of grief.
Her father, her tough-as-nails cop father, was crying.
She backed away silently. Then she walked to the front door, opened it, and shut it with a firm slam. “Dad?” she called, her voice deliberately chipper. “You home?”
She gave him time. Lingered on the stairs, picking up and putting down her bag. Even waited, pretending she was searching for something in her purse.
When he emerged from the kitchen, he looked a little splotchy, a little tired.
She would’ve ripped out her own tongue before she mentioned it.
“You’re home early,” she murmured.
“So are you,” he said, then studied her. “Something wrong?”
Oh, crap. With her eavesdropped conversation fresh in her mind, the last thing her father wanted to hear was his daughter just quit and could not make the rent.
And there was no way she was going to tell him about all the shenanigans going on in Fiendish’s basement.
As a cop, even a former one from what she heard, he’d feel duty-pressed to do something.
Assuming he believed her, anyway, which wasn’t guaranteed.
She wasn’t ready. She needed to sort her thoughts out first, especially since she was reeling with this new bombshell. “Ah…”
The doorbell rang, startling them both.
“I’ll get it,” she said, grateful for the reprieve, and opened the door.
Thomas stood there. He’d taken the time to dry off, at least, she noticed. He was in a different dark suit, and his face was handsome… and enigmatic.
He doesn’t look pissed. That was promising.
Then she remembered—she was pissed at him.
Of course, in light of recent events, could she really afford to be?
“Kate,” Thomas said. “We need to talk.”