Chapter Twenty-Three The Aftermath
Lucy
By the time the last song faded, the crowd had thinned to family and a handful of guests who couldn’t bring themselves to leave.
I stood near the dessert table, collecting dirty plates and throwing out used napkins.
The night had gone better than I imagined.
Everyone had given us compliments, welcomed us to the neighborhood, and told us they looked forward to more dances here.
It really had been a success. I was very grateful for that and a little surprised that we had pulled it off in such a short time.
Lydia had disappeared twice during the last hour, each time returning paler and quieter. I thought she might be tired or overwhelmed. When I asked if she needed to sit down, she shook her head. “I just need to find Gavin. He went out to check something."
Her voice wavered on the word something, but I didn’t question it, figuring I could talk to her once the night was fully over. There were still guests to thank and trays to clear.
Mom and Dad were still chatting with the guests that still lingered.
Jane and Braxton were washing up in the kitchen as Kitty and Meri helped pack away the glassware that had been rented for the evening.
Braxton kept finding reasons to tease her, and Jane kept pretending not to notice.
I smiled as I set down the dirty dishes near Jane.
When the DJ started packing up, I walked over to thank him. He offered to book the inn again next year and I promised to think about it. Behind me, the sound of laughter filled the room as Mom convinced a guest to take home a couple of leftover sweets.
Then I saw Dex come in through the side hallway.
He wasn’t smiling. His expression was calm, but his jaw had that set look it gets when he’s annoyed about something.
No that wasn’t it, I reflected with a frown.
Dex was upset. Lydia followed behind him, her face blotchy and streaked from crying.
The moment I saw her, my stomach tightened.
He caught my eye and nodded toward the office. “Can we talk?”
The tone of his voice was somber. I followed them both.
The office light glowed warm against the paper stacks and receipts that had taken over the desk. Dex stood behind it, sleeves rolled, his phone on speaker as he spoke to someone who sounded like they had been woken up.
“Yes,” he said evenly. “Trace the transaction, flag the account, and call me if it moves. Thank you."
He ended the call and looked at me.
Lydia’s hands twisted together.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“What happened?” I slowly asked, feeling uncertain.
Her voice trembled. “Gavin’s gone.”
“Gone where?” I looked at Dex.
“We don’t know." Lydia shrugged.
“He took the cash box. Everything collected tonight, and the ticket payments from the website,” Dex gravely told me.
My breath caught. “No, that can’t be right.”
“His car is gone. He’s been out of contact for over three hours now." Dex’s eyes were full of sympathy.
I stared at him, waiting for the part where this would turn into a misunderstanding. I had to have heard him wrong. “He took the money?”
“All of it,” Dex confirmed.
Lydia started crying. “I thought he was helping. He said he wanted to make things easier. He promised to handle the payments so we could focus on hosting.”
The sound of her voice made it hard to breathe. “How much?”
Dex hesitated. “Enough to matter.”
I gripped the edge of the desk to keep my hands from shaking. “And the vendors?”
“They’ve been paid. I covered them. The glassware, the ice, the shuttles, the servers. No one left unpaid,” Dex told me.
I took a deep breath. “You paid them? Yourself?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“My credit card or by electronically transferring the funds from my bank account.”
I didn’t know what to say. My throat ached, but the words stayed caught behind pride and shock. Lydia’s sob broke the silence. “I ruined everything.”
Mom’s voice came from the hallway. “What’s going on?”
She stepped inside, still smiling from whatever conversation she had been having, until she saw Lydia’s face. “Oh no, sweetheart. What happened?”
Lydia couldn’t answer. She pressed her palms to her eyes. Jane appeared behind Mom, and Dad followed, his expression tightening as he took in the scene.
Dex spoke first. “There’s been an issue with the funds. It’s under control.”
Mom frowned. “What kind of issue?”
Lydia’s voice cracked. “Gavin stole it. All of it.”
Mom gasped. “He wouldn’t.”
“He did,” Dex said quietly. “Gavin is gone and the money with him.”
Dad crossed his arms, grimacing. I realized the news didn’t come as a surprise to him. At some point during the night, Dex must have told him.
Yet he hadn’t told me until now.
“How much money?” I woodenly asked.
Dex didn’t sugarcoat it. “Perhaps thirty to fifty thousand. I can’t really say since we don’t know what amount of money people donated to charity tonight.”
Mom sank into a chair. “Oh, Lord. The papers will hear about this. People will think we’re fools! The community will hate us and we’ll be ruined.”
Jane crouched beside her. “We’ll fix it.”
Dex nodded. “We will. I’ve already started the process. I contacted my firm’s legal department and they will file reports with the bank and police first thing in the morning.”
Mom looked up at him, dazed. “You did all that tonight?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
Lydia’s voice came out in a whisper. “I trusted Gavin. He said all the right things. He made me feel like he believed in me.”
I moved toward her and pulled her into my arms. “You wanted to help. You didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“I wanted you to be proud of me,” she said, muffled against my shoulder.
“I am proud. You helped to put on an amazing event. You just trusted the wrong person,” I said softly.
Her shoulders shook. “You should be furious.”
“I am,” I admitted. “But not with you.”
Dad ran a hand over his face. “We’ll have to cut costs. Maybe postpone the next phase of the renovations.”
“No,” Dex said firmly. “You won’t. I’ll do my best to recover the money. He left a digital trail which gives us a starting point.”
Mom began to cry softly. Dad went to stand behind her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
“I’m sure you would have found another way to handle the problem. You’re all very capable,” Dex commented, shifting his weight. I realized he was uncomfortable with our gratitude for stepping in and helping.
“Why don’t we call it a night and figure out what to do tomorrow?” I suggested.
“I think that’s probably the most sensible thing. Everything that can be done tonight has been,” Dad concluded.
Mom dried her tears and nodded. She and Dad left the room with Jane following..
Lydia looked at Dex. “You must think I’m an idiot.”
He shook his head. “I think you just wanted to help your family and feel included. That’s all that most people want. Next time you’ll be more cautious with your friends.”
She bit her lip, then whispered, “Thank you for saving us.”
“I didn’t save anyone. I just paid a few bills,” Dex downplayed his involvement.
Lydia gave him a watery smile. “I think I will let Meri and Kitty know what happened.”
“That’s a good idea,” I agreed, giving Lydia a last hug before she left Dex and I alone in the front office.
“You didn’t need to do all this,” I said.
“Someone had to." Dex shrugged.
“Why didn’t you come and get me as soon as you suspected Gavin had run off with the money?” I wondered.
“I wanted you to enjoy the evening. You deserved to after all the effort you put into it. Besides, there was little you could do that wasn’t already being done,” Dex explained.
“You can’t keep fixing things for us.”
He finally met my eyes. “I don’t fix everything. Just what matters.”
“Why does it matter to you?”
He hesitated, then said softly, “Because you matter.”
The words hung between us. I felt them settle somewhere deep, impossible to move or ignore.
I wanted to ask so many questions. Why was he saying I mattered when he allowed Carly to hold onto his arm whenever she was near?
How much did I matter to him? Did he feel what I felt? Yet, I couldn’t get the questions out.
“Tomorrow I plan on finding out as much as I can about Gavin Wickham. I’ll give the relevant details to the authorities, and hopefully we can track him down so that he can be prosecuted,” Dex said.
“Then we can get our money back,” I added.
Dex paused. His eyes met mine as he shook his head. “It’s not that easy.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The money may have been moved to a different account or he may not have it anymore. If the police find the money, it will need to be used as evidence, which means you won’t get it back.
We can ask the court to order restitution, but that takes time and if Wickham chooses not to pay it your family would need to sue in a civil court.
It’s costly, the judge may or may not allow you to request the entire amount he stole, plus you would need to wait until he could liquidate assets, if he has any,” Dex explained.
It all made my head hurt. “We aren’t ever going to see this money again, are we?”
“It’s highly unlikely,” Dex softly said.
I swallowed hard. “We won’t be able to repay you for a while. There’s too many improvements that need to be made.”
“Lucy,” Dex tried to speak but I kept talking.
“Maybe we could do a repayment plan? You could charge us interest and consider it a loan." I tried to think of what we could do and how I could shuffle the little money that we had around to make payments.
“Lucy, you aren’t paying me back,” Dex told me.
“But we have to." I could feel panic building up inside of me. It was basically all of our contingency money and we had a roof to fix, a swimming pool that needed attention, plus so much more to do.
“Stop thinking for a moment,” Dex gently ordered me, reaching out to pull me into his arms. He hugged me to him . “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
I leaned against him, hoping it was true.