CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
When I took a glance at his face, I saw he was deep in thought, his mind working to find something to compare Virginia Crowley to. Something beautiful but inconspicuously sneaky and likely fatal.
"Belladonna," I offered in a hush, but before Dean could agree, I was already on my way out of the room.
I didn't need his confirmation to know it was true.
***
"You know, kiddo, I think you're starting to like me," Gerald said as I entered his office, opening the door without bothering to knock.
"Like might be an overstatement, but whatever you have to tell yourself," I grumbled, shutting the door behind me and twisting the lock.
He was at his desk, his eyes on the screen of his laptop as he said almost absent-mindedly, "So, there's something you wanna talk about?"
"Yeah," I replied, taking a seat and removing the mask. "Money."
He raised an eyebrow and glanced up at me from the laptop.
I had gotten his attention.
"Money?"
I sat back on the couch and crossed one ankle over my other thigh as I said, "Specifically, the two hundred grand that was deposited into Leonard's account every year like clockwork for the last … hmm … fourteen years or so."
A look of satisfied recollection crossed his face then as he slowly nodded and closed the lid on the laptop. He stood, revealing that he was wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants, and rounded the large wooden desk to cross the room to wear I sat.
"So, who figured it out?"
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Was it you? Shawn?" He chuckled, the sound a breathless huff as he sat down on the twin sofa across from me. "Certainly not your brother. Honestly blows my mind that he even managed to graduate high school, let alone college."
"Shawn found it," I admitted easily. "He was looking through Leonard's records and saw the deposits. That’s what he does. If he finds something, he goes digging, and then he came to me about it."
Gerald nodded, an expression of pride on his face. "And so you just assumed Lenny was gettin’ the money from me?"
"Where the fuck else would he get it from?
" I challenged him, tipping my head. "He was barely getting by.
The place was falling apart. The three of us figured business was suddenly booming, but no.
Apparently, it was you, keeping the whole damn thing afloat.
And I'm here now, trying to figure out why the hell you would do that. "
The smile wilted from his face as he sucked in a breath and tipped his head slightly, assessing me with a hardened glare. "I told you before, Abraham, he was my—"
"Oh, knock it off, Gerald," I fired back, feeling the power slipping into my grasp, even just a little bit.
"You want me to believe Leonard was your friend?
Sure, fine, I could maybe entertain the idea that you grew to like him over the years—he was a likable kind of guy—but that's not what happened initially. Not in the beginning. No, you made a deal with him, didn’t you? What was it?"
He was perturbed now, shifting his jaw from side to side and poking his inner cheek with the tip of his tongue.
I had rattled his cage, asked the right questions, gotten beneath his skin in a way that made his typical I don't give a shit attitude wash away to reveal the scumbag businessman underneath.
He stood up, circled to the back of the couch I sat on, and asked, "You want a drink?"
"Nope."
"One day, you will."
I laughed at that. "Nah, I've seen too many people throw their lives away with drugs and booze. I don't suspect I'll ever be one of them."
His chuckle was bitter and rough as he poured himself some whiskey from the crystal decanter.
"Oh, my boy … you're new to this life, but that means you're still naive.
You think you'll be able to get by on sobriety, but let me tell you something.
Sooner or later, kiddo, you're gonna do something, you're gonna see something …
" With a glass in his hand, he walked around the couches again to resume his seat.
"And you're not gonna have a choice but to pop a few pills, stick a needle in your vein, or down a bottle of something or other … just to grab a few hours of sleep."
The hardened look in his eyes made me wonder what it was he had seen or done. I wondered if I even wanted to know. But then he seemed to consider something, tipping his head and pursing his lips as he studied my face.
"Or maybe you're already too fucked up," he said, as if thinking aloud.
"Maybe I am," I challenged, my eyes narrowed on him.
With a sigh, he knocked the drink back, took a hearty gulp, then lowered the glass to rest against his thigh as he said, "Anyway, as for the money, think of it as, uh …” He snapped his fingers a few times, his brow pinched, as if trying to find the words he was looking for, then pointed at me and exclaimed, “Child support! That’s it. It was child support."
The words startled a laugh from my chest.
"Child support?" I repeated, incredulous. “Give me a fucking break.”