Chapter 5
Opening the door to Bee and Cleo holding two pizza boxes, wrapped garlic bread, and what looked suspiciously like a cookie pie was the best moment of Abigail’s day. The food had been a highlight despite leaving her feeling slightly ill, and it had all been downhill from there.
"So, I hope you don’t mind," Bee said, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin and tossing it at the waste bin, "but I kinda looked up that fake name you mentioned Jacob used at the hospital?"
Abigail turned to her. "What—Coby Venn? Did you find anything?"
"Actually, yes," Bee said, pulling out a printout of a medical record and placing it on the table.
As she picked it up, Abigail saw the name Coby Venn at the top, but the signature at the bottom—though generally illegible—had a definite letter J at the start of it. She shook her head. Had he seriously signed his real name on a form bearing a fake one?
Her smile at Jacob’s dumb action faded as she read the report.
"...two broken ribs, facial bruising... What the hell!?"
Cleo piped up and snatched the paper, "Oh my God—when did this happen?"
Abigail scanned the page for a date, "uhm... right about halfway through freshman year."
The old friends looked at each other.
"That was..." Cleo started to say but faded.
"Right about when he said he came off his BMX on holiday," Abigail finished, “I didn’t even think about it—it seemed exactly like him. But if it was an accident, there’s no way he would have needed to use a fake name."
The evidence of their friend's violent homelife hung between them, and Abigail was lost for words.
"Look at who paid for the visit..." Bee said, pointing to the bottom of the page.
The blood in Abigail’s veins ran cold as she read the last line.
"Cardholder name, Stanford and Fromm Equities and Bonds Corporate."
She felt the room start to spin and light nausea clenched in her stomach. Cleo was ranting about something but she just couldn’t listen.
"Hey, uh, guys?"
Abigail realized she had spoken and they were looking at her.
"Can we... can we go through those papers properly... together? Everything seems to be coming back to this jackass company and... I just need to know what the hell my dad had to do with any of it.”
***
“Listen to this… it’s all nonsense!” Bee exclaimed, holding up a sheet of paper.
The women both turned to regard her as she took a dramatically large breath and started to speak incredibly quickly. Abigail blinked. Bee sounded like the guy at the end of pharmaceutical commercials reading out the side effects list.
"Whereas, pursuant to the provisions laid out herein, henceforth referred to as The Conditions, shall be agreed to forthwith, and without prejudice, it is hereby signed and affirmed by the parties named, that any forward progress of sale, exchange, transaction of goods, services, or any other item or act of tangible value will cease as stipulated by the restrictive declaration that in the event of aforesaid legal quandaries, all parties involved shall be subject to The Conditions while investigation ensues. In consideration of the heretofore enumerated and stated provisions and in acknowledgment of the vast complexities inherent to property and sales transactions under state and federal law, please sign and affirm your agreeance and, without restriction, release The Company from liability whether real, assumed, or perceived."
“Whether real OR PERCEIVED?” Cleo exclaimed, “What the actual hell!”
Abigail gave herself a shake. “That… that’s basically saying ‘even if we are literally liable, you agree not to sue us?”
“I mean, yeah,” Bee said, “but I don’t think it would hold up in court… it’s a word salad. This is what someone who knows nothing about legal writing would churn out if they were trying to sound smart… or even make a joke about how ridiculous legal jargon is…”
Fleetingly, Abigail wondered how Bee knew so much about legal jargon but was distracted by Cleo waving a hand.
“Wait! I think I’ve seen something like this before!”
She was rapidly scrolling through her phone and eventually found the page she was looking for.
“Here!”
She turned the phone and an article about the bankruptcy and associated financial scam filled the screen. She turned it back towards herself and started reading.
“One victim of the fraudulent scheme, who was taken for over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, has said that he had signed because he felt that he was protected by the terms and conditions he agreed to.”
Bee and Abigail glanced at each other as Cleo scrolled through the article.
“…yeah, here, ‘The Conditions, shall be agreed to forthwith, and without prejudice, it is hereby signed and affirmed by the parties named shall comply with regulations both state and federal to act in compliance as required’ that phrase ‘forthwith, and without prejudice’ just rattled the memory loose in my head…oh, sorry Abby.”
“It’s fine,” Abigail said, “really, everyone’s memory works kind of the same way… it’s a universal experience.”
Her friend smiled sheepishly at her and Abigail winked.
Bee broke in, “But all those people… not even one of them questioned this ridiculous stuff?”
“Apparently not…”
"I just don’t get how there was no... I dunno, law? Laws! Copyright on the logo!? I don’t know, something to stop them from doing this?" Cleo said, pointing to the photograph of a letter sent to an investor.
"Hah! Oh, there are plenty of laws against the actual practices they were doing. This is straight-up fraud." Abigail said, "But like, look here, this is their registration number—I’d bet good money that if you looked it up, it doesn’t lead to anything, or if it does, it’s not them. People know that brokers and accountants need qualifications or licenses but they rarely check them. Just seeing it on the letterhead is enough for a lot of people, and people hate admitting they don’t understand something… they want to make whoever is in front of them think they’re smart so they pretend to understand even if they don’t."
Cleo glared at the phone, "I hate that so much."
"Yeah, me too," Abigail replied, "it’s the way a lot of these scams work. They look legitimate enough to be plausible so no one looks into it. A lot of email scams get fallen into because folks are only ever warned about the badly spelled, poorly written emails making weird threats or giving obscene prizes—but there are plenty that look legitimate and ask you to log in to ‘keep your account active’ or whatever."
"And why do you know so much about email scams?" Cleo asked, poking Abigail's arm, "Did you win the lottery in some random country and just couldn’t resist the urge to check?"
She could see Cleo was joking with her, but it was an upsettingly serious answer.
"Well, unfortunately, there was a family at the girls’ school a year or so ago," she said, "their kid was sent an email that looked like it was from a website they regularly play games on. It said their account was about to be closed due to a setting they needed to change. The kid clicked it and logged in, and it looked like the real site. The senders then had that password and some of the identity information of the cardholder—the kid’s Mom, Emily—and they then brute force attacked the online banking details associated with the billing information. They stole over twenty grand and opened up something like fifty credit cards."
"Oh," Cleo said awkwardly, "that’s... Less funny. Not that any scam is funny... Damn, did they get any of it back?"
Shrugging, Abigail waved a hand in the air. "Some, like three-quarters of the cash, was able to be reversed by the bank, but the rest had already made it out of the country. Their credit score is still recovering."
The three women fell silent as Abigail’s words sunk in and she felt a little guilty for bringing the mood down so much… despite how ridiculous it felt that the mood could have been anything other than depressing while they pawed through her father’s hidden files on what was apparently large scale financial fraud.
“I just don’t understand why my dad had any of this stuff…” she said finally, “we didn’t have anything to do with it, we weren’t scammed… my dad was an accountant! He wouldn’t have fallen for any of this…”
As Abigail looked up, she saw Bee and Cleo exchange glances.
“What?” she asked, confused.
Cleo cleared her throat awkwardly.
“Have you considered that… you know, maybe he…” Cleo stammered, begging her to fill in the blanks.
“That my dad was a criminal and thief and caused the financial ruin of multiple of my neighbors and friends’ families? Yeah, I’ve considered it and I’ve dismissed it.”
An icy silence filled the room, and Abigail felt her bottom lip quiver. The fact was that she hadn’t entirely dismissed it… Her financial position growing up was pretty comfortable; there was nothing extravagant or over the top, but they hadn’t ever really struggled. Then, with her health issues, they’d been worse off for sure, but the assistance from various charities had taken a lot of the burden off them. Now, though, as she stared at the page unreading, all she could think of was Jacob’s medical bill paid for by Stanford and Fromm Equities and Bonds.
“I can’t read any of this anymore,” she said finally. “I want to show you the pictures.”
Her friends nodded and followed suit, getting up off the office floor and following her to the desk where she laid them out. An image of the last time she had done this ran through her mind. She hadn’t told the girls about what Byron had done that day—the mystery phone call, the emphasis on how he shouldn’t have even let her see it happen. She might well still be trying to figure out how much she trusted him now, but she knew he trusted her, and for this one thing, that was enough. Cleo had asked, of course, and she had given her a modified version of his apology; that he had said he had thought he recognized an old friend and freaked out. Cleo was completely underwhelmed but had accepted Abigail’s story with a huff.
“Holy smokes…” Bee said, jarring Abigail’s attention.
“What?”
“That!” she said, pointing at the second photograph. “You don’t know who that is!?”
“We obviously don’t!” Cleo exclaimed.
“That’s Mac McGregor!” Bee said, like that was supposed to clarify anything at all, “Mac McGregor… head of a terrorist cell operating in London in the seventies?”
“I had no idea…” Abigail’s stomach was twisting. Why in the name of all good and holy things had there been a terrorist sitting on her couch!?
She dropped the photographs on the desk and shook her head as she took her seat on the chair next to her.
Bee slowly picked up the pile and flipped through them.
“Oh my God…”
“What now?” Cleo asked, “an orphanage arsonist?”
“Not quite but… this guy,” Bee held up one of the shots, “he was the gith hand man for a people smuggling operation that ran for thirty years. He only got caught when one of his lackeys tried to abduct some kid for ransom and the kid died—he was top number one priority for the FBI from then on. And this guy… he’s…”
As Bee’s voice failed, Cleo interrupted.
“What? You just recognize a kid killer? Off the top of your head like he’s a fricken rockstar… Why do you even know that!” Cleo asked loudly, “That’s such a messed up thing to know!”
Bee just shook her head and Abigail could see that she was getting upset.
“Hey, tone!” Abigail admonished, “Bee, the other guy?”
Bee was staring at the photograph that Byron had taken, clearly trying to block out Cleo’s insult.
“No, sorry, I was wrong. I don’t recognize that one,” she said. “Sorry, I’m going to take my messed up knowledge home with me so the horrifying reality of the world we live in doesn’t offend Cleo’s sensitive temperament.”
Abigail had never seen Bee look so upset or be so sharp with Cleo. She leaped to her feet and followed Bee out of the office, but despite all Abigail’s protests at the front door, Bee insisted that she was leaving and didn’t look back towards the house as she headed for the street.