Chương 8
I put the envelope back into the folder.
My hands had started shaking badly.
"All of you need to leave."
Dad stepped toward me.
"Naomi."
"Leave."
"I said I'd answer."
"Not today."
He stopped.
I looked at Mom.
She had regained part of herself.
That made me angrier than seeing her afraid.
"You asked me for forty thousand dollars."
She said nothing.
"I'm not giving you forty dollars."
Jared looked at me.
I almost apologized.
Then I didn't.
His tax problem belonged to him.
Maybe for the first time in his life.
"I know," he said.
His voice was quiet.
Mom reached for him.
"Come with us."
He stepped away from her hand.
Dad opened the door.
Cold air moved into the hallway.
Mom walked outside first.
She paused on the porch.
"You should think very carefully before you let strangers tear apart this family."
I looked past her at the driveway.
At their rental SUV.
At the neighbor across the street carrying grocery bags inside.
At a world that kept insisting on being ordinary.
Then I looked back at her.
"You already tore it apart."
I closed the door before she could answer.
The lock clicked.
For several seconds, I stood there with my hand on it.
Then my knees gave out.
I slid down against the door and sat on the floor.
Through the wood, I heard muffled voices.
Mom sharp.
Dad low.
Jared suddenly loud.
A car door slammed.
Then another.
Then silence.
I remained on the floor until my phone rang.
The screen showed a number I didn't recognize.
I almost ignored it.
Then I remembered Johnny's letter.
One of the names.
The forensic accountant.
I answered.
"Naomi Hale?"
Her voice was calm and older than I expected.
"Yes."
"This is Rebecca Sloan."
I looked at the folder beside me.
"I spoke to you last night."
"I know."
There was a pause.
"I need to tell you something I didn't want to tell you over the phone until I verified it."
My fingers tightened around the phone.
"What?"
"We found a transfer this morning."
"From where?"
"From one of the holding accounts linked to your trust."
I closed my eyes.
"How much?"
"Eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars."
I opened them again.
"Where did it go?"
Another pause.
"To a company controlled by your brother."
I stared through the hallway toward the empty sofa.
Jared had just left my house believing he had been used.
Now his name sat on the other end of the money.
Rebecca spoke carefully.
"Naomi, before you confront anyone, you need to understand something."
I said nothing.
"The transfer happened forty-eight hours after Johnny first contacted us."
I pressed the phone harder against my ear.
"What exactly does that mean?"
Rebecca was quiet for a beat.
"It means the timing concerns me."
"Does it concern you because Jared received the money?"
"It concerns me because the transfer was initiated two days after Johnny requested records that would have exposed the ownership problem."
I stood slowly.
"Did Jared initiate it?"
"We don't know."
"But his company got the money."
"A company connected to him got the money."
"That's not the same thing?"
"Not necessarily."
I looked toward the front door.
Jared had been sitting on my sofa less than five minutes earlier.
"What's the company called?"
"Northline Hospitality Services."
The name meant nothing to me.
"Does Jared own it?"
"His name appears on one filing as a manager."
"That sounds like ownership."
"It can."
Rebecca's voice stayed maddeningly careful.
"It can also mean someone used his name in a structure he didn't fully understand."
I closed my eyes.
"Like mine."
"Possibly."
That word again.
Possibly.
Everything had become possibly.
Possibly stolen.
Possibly forged.
Possibly hidden.
Possibly connected.
Grief had already made the world unstable.
Now facts were refusing to hold still too.
"What happened to the eight hundred twenty thousand?"
"We can trace part of it."
"Where?"
"Two hundred thousand went to cover debt attached to Jared's first restaurant venture."
I sat back down on the floor.
That business had failed seven years ago.
My parents had described the bailout as one of their great sacrifices.
"And the rest?"
"That's the problem."
I waited.
"Approximately six hundred thousand moved again within seventy-two hours."
"To where?"
"Three entities."
"Owned by my parents?"
"Connected to them."
I rubbed my forehead.
"Rebecca, please stop talking like a deposition."
She exhaled.
"Fair."
Her voice softened.
"The money moved in a circle."
"What does that mean?"
"It went from an account linked to your trust into Northline, then from Northline into three businesses your parents controlled or benefited from."
I stared at Gemma's sneakers beneath the bench.
"So Jared's company may have been a pass-through."
"That's what it looks like."
"Why?"
"To make the transfer look like support for his business instead of a distribution benefiting your parents."
I felt suddenly nauseated.
"You said Johnny contacted you before it happened."
"Yes."
"So they knew he was looking?"
"I can't prove that yet."
"Could Johnny have told them?"
"He told your father he had questions."
I remembered Dad admitting the January meeting.
"He confronted both of them."
"Then yes, they knew he was looking into something."
I lowered my voice.
"And forty-eight hours later they moved eight hundred thousand dollars."
"Someone did."
I hated her caution.
I also trusted it.
Johnny must have trusted it too.
"What do I do?"
"Today?"
"Yes."
"Nothing dramatic."
I laughed without humor.
"That ship has sailed."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"Don't confront Jared about the transfer yet."
"Why?"
"Because if he knew, he'll start protecting himself."
"And if he didn't?"
"He may panic and destroy evidence without understanding what he's destroying."
That sounded exactly like Jared.
Not evil.
Just frightened and stupid at the wrong time.
"Do not contact your mother again today."
"She was just here."
Rebecca went silent.
"What?"
"All three of them were."
"Oh."
May you like
That single syllable contained more judgment than a lecture.
"They came asking me for money."
