Chapter 9
Cleo slept on the couch across from her again last night. It had become a bit of a habit that she was unwilling to let go of. As the pair got themselves cleaned up after breakfast, Cleo stretched her arms high above her head and yawned. A loud series of pops made Abigail stare.
“Was that you cracking your back!?” she asked, slightly appalled.
Laughing as she nodded, Cleo rolled her shoulders and stretched her leg out in front of her, causing a further series of pops.
“Oh gross!! Stop that!” Abigail flicked at her friend with the dishcloth she was using to dry the plates.
“Oh, stop,” Cleo replied. “I’m fixing it! There’s a yoga class in ninety minutes, you want to join me?”
Abigail wrinkled her nose but agreed. It might be good to get some relaxing stretching in. She gestured at the clothes Cleo had slept in questioningly, but her friend only winked and picked her backpack up off the floor. From inside, she fished out a pair of leggings, sports bra, and a comfy looking t-shirt.
“No excuses,” she said teasingly, “go get ready. We can walk.”
Resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at her friend, Abigail padded down the hallway towards the living room where she was still sleeping. As she passed the door to the office, she paused and peered in. Nothing was different, nothing had moved, but she was suddenly filled by the urge to step in and look around. She was just about to take a step when something her dad used to say popped into her head. ‘Sometimes the doors we want to open the most are the doors we should avoid like we know the devil is standing on the other side’. It was something he’d said to her often, usually when she was nagging him to come and play, when she was younger, or to let her do something he didn’t approve of when she was older.
“What was that?” Cleo asked, her sudden appearance at Abigail’s side making her jump.
“Oh my god! Don’t do that!” Abigail exclaimed, clutching her chest.
“What? I saw you looking and so I came to see what was so interesting... What did you say about the devil?”
Oh no,Abigail thought, had I said that out loud?
She glanced over her shoulder and came face to face with a frowning Cleo.
“Uh... It was something my dad used to say to me.”
Cleo’s left eyebrow rose and Abigail sighed.
“Sometimes the doors we want to open the most are the doors we should avoid like we know the devil is standing on the other side,” Abigail repeated, “he used to say it when I was being nosey.”
“Nosey?” Cleo echoed, “more like curious. Did he seriously think saying that to his kid was a good idea? ‘Better not go after anything you want, you might be punished for it!’“
Abigail bristled, “I think it was more like, don’t go snooping in your father’s private work stuff...”
Cleo rolled her eyes, “still, don’t you find that weird?”
“No,” Abigail said defensively, “my kids used to poke around in my make up bag and my laptop all the time, it was the worst!”
She wasn’t sure but that might have actually caused Cleo’s lips to twitch.
“Hmm,” she said, “even since the whole ‘finding a gun you didn’t know he owned hidden in the wall’ stuff?”
“Well obviously that changes things!” Abigail exclaimed, frustrated with Cleo’s tone. “I’m just... Not used to criticizing my dad. He was great, even when he was being a pain in the butt.”
“Hmm,” Cleo said again.
Torn between arguing more and stuffing her feelings down in a bottle, Abigail stepped into the office and moved to glare at the gun safe. After a few long moments, Cleo came and joined her.
“Do you think it was for, like, protection? From his clients?”
“So you think my dad was so irresponsible as to have clients come to the house where his wife and kid are, whom he might need to use a gun against?”
“Sorry, that’s... Not really what I meant,” Cleo said awkwardly, “I just meant, I dunno, maybe it’s more along the lines of he found out something about his clients and then got the gun because he thought he might need protection.”
“I’m not sure that’s better.”
The two stood in silence for a long time before Abigail could think of something to say.
“I do remember one client I didn’t like,” she said slowly, “he was always too serious. I only saw him a few times—usually when I had come home early from something and my dad wasn’t expecting me. He wore a black suit, and I remember thinking he looked like an undertaker.”
“Too serious?”
“Yeah, like once I said something like ‘how’s it going’ and he just looked at me like I was insane.”
“Huh,” Cleo said, “adults are weird.”
“Cleo, honey, we are adults,” Abigail said, attempting to find at least some humor.
Her friend let out a long, exasperated groan, “only technically, I still feel sixteen. Well, not exactly, my back hurts a lot more than when I was sixteen...”
They smiled at each other and Abigail held up a finger, “ah, actually, I remember something. The few times I saw him around was when that big investment firm went bankrupt. Do you remember?”
“Uh, yeah—about half the people on the street lost something and three of them moved. My parents were pretty lucky actually,” Cleo said. “My dad had been talking to one of the stockbrokers until my mom saw the pamphlet and read him the riot act—she was no fool with money.”
With an awkward shrug, Cleo pointed to the door with a questioning expression.
“Yeah, sure,” Abigail replied, but it was halfhearted.
She pulled on leggings and a comfortable shirt before rejoining Cleo at the door to leave for their yoga class.
“Do you remember the name? Of the investment company, I mean?”
Abigail paused as she locked the door before turning to Cleo, her face squished up in concentration.
“Something pretty typical—Abbott, Abbott, and Johnson or Stippling and Sons, something like that.”
“Was it, by any chance, Stanford and Fromm Equities and Bonds?”
“Oh damn, yeah, I think that was it… hey!” Abigail said, impressed with her friend’s memory. “Why? How’d you know that?”
Cleo looked very guilty, “Well, um, I looked it up... But then it kind of rang a bell? I think they were mentioned on one of those papers your dad was keeping in the safe...”
She froze, “really?”
“Yeah...”
“We should—” Abigail moved to unlock the door but Cleo’s hand came to rest on her forearm.
“And we will, but don’t you think it’s a good idea to not let it be an all-consuming anxiety thing?”
Abigail realized she was fumbling with the keys badly. She’d missed the keyhole several times. With a sigh, she glanced at Cleo and saw her friend was looking at her with open and genuine concern.
“I guess,” she admitted, “but just so you know there’s no way on earth we won’t be talking about this on the walk to and from.”
“Unless the yoga class relaxes you so much you no longer care about worldly worries, of course.”
Abigail laughed, “Yeah, sure, of course. But for now, what does the internet say about Scammer, Thieves, and Co?”
She let herself be steered away from her front door and down the road towards the center hosting the yoga class. Along the way, Cleo read out articles and forum posts about the company while they walked and Abigail searched for more information on her own phone.
“Listen to this,” Cleo said, gesturing with her phone, “Stanford and Fromm Equities and Bonds has issued a public statement just one month after the allegations of fraud and insider trading were made. Speaking from the New York head office, a PR spokesperson for the company has stated that the events that took place in Rhode Island are not indicative of the company’s broader practices and that while the individuals involved should face the full force of the legal system, the honest employees and their families should not be tarred with the same brush.”
“Huh? I thought they went totally bankrupt?” Abigail said.
“Yeah, so did I,” Cleo replied, “that’s for sure something to look at—after class.”
They’d arrived just in time for the class to start, but somehow the thirty minute walk had felt like nothing at all. The yoga class wasn’t bad, but she spent the whole time thinking about what she and Cleo had found.
At the end of the surprisingly grueling hour and a half, they had to lay on their backs and breathe in time with the teacher’s instructions. As she lay there, counting to eight as she breathed in, a thought popped into her head. Most of her parents’ stuff was still in storage.
It hadn’t just been the house in Newport that she had neglected to deal with in the ten years since she inherited everything. For the rest of the savasana, Abigail was more focused on remembering where she had put her dad’s files than how many counts she was supposed to be breathing for, and as soon as the teacher released them from their forced lying down, she rushed to her phone to text Shelley.
From Abigail: Hey, Shells, I have a favor to ask. You remember what I said about the storage unit with my parents’ stuff in it? I need a box or two...