43. June
43
JUNE
N ow that the cops are no longer breathing down our necks, things settle down a little bit. It's nice to not constantly look over my shoulder. Part of me kept thinking one of the detectives would just show up someplace I was. But with no video, no harassment.
Now is the time to focus on me. And in the realm of me, things are a little sideways. I have no job. I haven't seen my friends in a long while. And my father has struck a friendship with the man who kidnapped me.
Not that he knew that last part before they became friends. But still.
I've always known my father was opportunist. He's a con artist. It's in their blood. But using me to make contact with somebody that he can use was a little bit beyond my scope. It's awkward to admit I didn't see it coming. That trick with having one of his work buddies fake my e-mail? That was genius.
And now I have to yell at him for being a genius.
I arrange to meet him at my old apartment. It was his mother-in-law's place, so he knows the address. There's no way I'm meeting him at our place. I don't want him to be familiar with where I live. A shameful state of affairs for a father and daughter, but it's true. I have no doubt that if he thought he could get money from Anderson, he'd figure away. He used me for contact with Andre. Why wouldn't he do the same with my fiancé?
It's been quite a while since I've been back. The air inside smells a little stale, so I opened up the windows. It's raining again. And cold. Winter in Boston. But at least the air is fresh.
I tidy up the place just to make sure that everything is in order. Not that I'm worried about impressing my father, but I still want the place to be neat when he shows up. I also pack another bag of clothes. I've been running out of things at our place.
I don't know when I stopped thinking of it as Anderson's place and started thinking of it as ours. But I'm glad for it.
Dad shows up, looking dapper as ever. He smiles as he moseys around. “Your granny would be happy with how you've kept the place.”
“Thanks. Want a drink?”
“I'll take a bottle of water if you've got one.”
“Coming right up.” I dash to the kitchen.
He says, “Given our last conversation, I wasn't exactly expecting an invitation.”
“Well, there are things that we need to talk about,” I tell him as I walk in with the waters. One for him and one for me. As much as I'd like alcohol for this conversation, I don't think it's a great idea.
“So what is it you'd like to talk about, Junebug?”
“How much of what Andre had me doing for him was your doing?”
That earns a frown. “I'm not sure what you mean.”
“He had me looking into the properties owned by Elliott West. He wanted to buy up those properties out from under him.” I look him in the eye. “He wanted to ruin the man.”
“And what about all of that makes you think I had anything to do with it?”
If he had given me a flat-out denial, I would have thought it was a lie. Asking questions? He didn't know about it. Good. “Just checking.”
“I don't imagine that's all that's on your mind.”
“Not hardly.” I shift in my seat, uncomfortable right now. I've never liked confronting my father. But if we're going to have any kind of a relationship, I have to be able to do that. “I need you to tell me why it is that you want Andre's account.”
“I already told you. I need to land a big account.”
“Why him? There are hundreds of other CEOs in Boston, and even more in Manhattan, that you could have easily gone for. But you pursued Andre. Viciously, I might add, considering you used me to do it.”
It's subtle, but I see his fingers twitch. Dad never twitches.
“So Andre used you against the father of your boyfriend?”
“He did.”
“And that makes him a bad guy … ” He strokes his chin.
“Where are you going with this?”
For a moment, he hems and haws. But then he admits, “I may not have been entirely forthcoming about my connections to Andre Moeller.”
“No shit. So tell me what you're up to.”
“Well, it's not completely on the up and up, and I don't want to get you tangled up in it. Let's just say if things go the way that I want them to, he'll be real angry. And since he's a bad guy, that's a good thing, right?”
I frown at him. “Dad, just tell me what's going on. For once in your life, be straight with me.”
He smirks a little. “Well, it is kind of a genius plan, and I haven't been able to talk to anybody about it, so that would be nice.”
“Go on.”
“One of the more interesting facets of life that I've discovered since being outside of prison is the amount of interesting things you can do with a computer.”
“You mean like faking my e-mail?”
His smirk grows into a full smile. “I mean digital fraud.”
“Yeah, the e-mail?—"
But he shakes his head. “That was small potatoes compared to what I'm talking about. Back at HQ, we've got these real smart guys. And smart girls. They know all about those advanced algorithms and bots and a bunch of other stuff that they yammer on about that I don't understand. And some of them came to me with an idea.”
Oh hell. “What idea?”
“Now don't go getting an attitude. This has a very high success rate.”
He must have said that to himself about every scam he'd run until now. It's funny. I'm pretty sure the first con that any con man pulls is on themselves to convince themselves their crazy plans will work. “Just tell me.”
“Alright, see, what I do is, I sell Andre on a big advertising push online. And I mean big. We're talking in the millions. And my tech friends, they generate a bunch of false traffic using their algorithms and bots and whatever so that it looks like the website is getting an inordinate amount of hits. It inflates the web traffic. All the ad views go way up. His advertisers, marketers, they don't know what's going on other than it's working.”
I don’t quite follow him. “And that makes you money?”
“Well, sure. I come off looking like a marketing genius. More importantly, because of the way that we set up the contract, we get a cut every single time somebody clicks. Even if we made that somebody up.”
Yeah, that's fraud. “That's one hell of a gamble.”
“It gets better. Andre, being Andre, is happy to recommend me to any of his friends who might need some online marketing help. I get in good with his friends. I get their accounts. Soon, a little project getting us a few million is a big project getting us tens of millions of dollars, maybe more.” He grins. “Now my little techie friends there, they know all about digital marketing platforms and networks and all that good stuff. They do the back end. I take care of the front end.”
“You're the salesman.”
He nods. “I do what comes naturally. I make friends.”
“And use them to steal from them.”
“Now, now, I'm not stealing from Andre. Though given how he's treated you, I don't think you could really be mad at me for that. Mostly we're stealing from the advertisers.”
“I can't believe you still have your job.”
He laughs. “Of course I do. I'm in sales. The first thing you ever sell is yourself.”
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter. Dad is Dad. If he's breathing, he's scheming. I am genuinely unsure what to do with that. I can't trust him. But I know it. With him being close to Andre, maybe I can use that if I need to.
“Granny always said you were a real piece of work.”
He laughs hard. “That woman always hated me. Even before I gave her a reason to.”
“Sometimes you just know when somebody's up to no good.”
“Ah, now, Junebug, you're going to hurt my feelings.”
“Is that even possible?”
His laughter fades away. He looks me in the eyes. “It is. You did a good job of it last time we spoke.”
“Was I wrong?”
“It's good to see you.” A swift dodge as ever.
I'd like to be able to say that it's good to see him too. I'm just not sure. “So this whole time you were trying to get to know me was actually you trying to get in good with Andre, right?”
“I'm a networker. Things for me are never that black or white. The world is full of grey.”
His words struck a nerve. “You're right about that, Dad.”