Chương 11
I stayed in the bathroom until Riley knocked once.
“You alive?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want company?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
She paused.
“I’m sitting outside the door.”
I laughed despite myself.
“That is not leaving me alone.”
“I’m respecting the spirit of privacy.”
“You’re terrible at boundaries.”
“Winston taught me.”
I unlocked the door.
She was sitting cross-legged on the hallway floor.
I stepped over her and returned to the kitchen.
My phone showed another message from Mom.
Your father is not well.
I stared at it.
Then another appeared.
His blood pressure is dangerously high because of this stress.
Riley read over my shoulder.
“That’s disgusting.”
I typed a response.
Then deleted it.
Typed another.
Deleted that too.
Finally I put the phone down.
“Good,” Riley said.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Exactly.”
At four twenty, someone buzzed Riley’s apartment from downstairs.
We both froze.
Winston began barking.
Riley checked the intercom.
No voice.
The buzzer sounded again.
My chest tightened.
“Don’t answer.”
“I’m not.”
A third buzz came.
Then my phone rang.
Dad.
Riley looked at me.
“He’s downstairs.”
I knew before she said it.
My phone stopped ringing.
A message appeared.
I know you’re there.
My hands went cold.
Then another.
Come downstairs.
We need five minutes.
Riley walked to the window and looked toward the street.
“Black Mercedes?”
“Yes.”
“He’s here.”
My father had found me.
For years, that would have meant the end of the argument.
Dad arrived.
Dad explained.
Dad decided.
Instead, I took a screenshot of his messages and sent them to Maya.
She called immediately.
“Do not go downstairs.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Do not open the door if he gets into the building.”
Riley grabbed her keys.
“I’m calling management.”
Maya continued.
“If he refuses to leave or attempts to enter, call 911.”
The instruction sounded enormous.
“That’s my father.”
“Yes.”
“He’s not violent.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“What if he just wants to talk?”
“Then he can communicate through counsel.”
A new message appeared.
Amber, stop behaving like a child.
Something inside me went still.
Not calm.
Still.
I walked to the intercom.
Riley turned.
“What are you doing?”
I pressed the talk button.
My father’s voice came through immediately.
“Amber?”
For one second, hearing him almost undid everything.
He sounded normal.
Annoyed, tired, familiar.
“Go home, Dad.”
“Come downstairs.”
“No.”
“We can fix this.”
“I have a lawyer.”
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
“Who?”
“I’m not discussing that.”
“Amber, do you have any idea what Scott has done?”
“This isn’t about Scott.”
“He is manipulating you because he is trying to protect himself.”
“Maybe.”
The word surprised him.
It surprised me too.
“Then come down and let me explain.”
“No.”
“Your mother is sick over this.”
“Mom can call a doctor.”
“Don’t be smart.”
There it was.
The tone that had straightened my spine since childhood.
I looked at Riley.
She was watching me without moving.
Dad continued.
“You are jeopardizing years of work because you don’t understand what you’re looking at.”
“What did I sign when I turned twenty-one?”
Silence.
It lasted less than two seconds.
It was enough.
“Where did you hear about that?”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not denial.
A question about my source.
“What did I sign?”
“Estate paperwork.”
“What happened to Grandma’s trust?”
“Amber, this is not a conversation for an intercom.”
“Where is the money?”
“We used it for your education.”
“I have student loans.”
“Your education cost far more than your loans.”
“Show me.”
“Come downstairs.”
“No.”
His breath came harshly through the speaker.
“You are making a mistake.”
“Then send the records to my lawyer.”
“Who is your lawyer?”
I did not answer.
His voice hardened.
“If you accuse your mother and me of fraud, you will destroy this family.”
For twenty-four years, family had meant whatever protected him.
I looked at the intercom button beneath my thumb.
“No, Dad.”
My voice barely shook.
“If there was fraud, whoever committed it did that.”
I released the button.
The buzzer sounded again almost instantly.
I did not answer.
Dad called six times.
Then Mom called three.
Then the building manager came upstairs and told Riley the man in the Mercedes had finally left after being warned that police would be contacted.
I stood by the window and watched the black car disappear at the end of the block.
My knees started shaking only after it was gone.
Riley came beside me.
“You did good.”
“I almost went downstairs.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I wanted him to explain it.”
“I know.”
“I still do.”
She rested her forearms on the windowsill.
“That’s probably going to be the worst part.”
“What?”
“Some part of you is going to keep wanting your dad to become the person who could explain why your dad did this.”
I looked at her.
“That sentence is terrible.”
“I know.”
“It’s also annoyingly accurate.”
“I know that too.”
My phone vibrated.
A new message had arrived from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph of a document.
At the top was my grandmother’s trust account number.
At the bottom was a transfer authorization dated three years earlier.
The recipient account belonged to Mitchell Urban Holdings II.
The authorized beneficiary signature was mine.
Under the photograph, someone had written:
Your mother asked me to destroy this copy last year.
I kept it.
I stared at the message until Riley took the phone from my hand.
“Who sent this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you call?”
The number was local.
I pressed it.
A woman answered after four rings.
“Amber?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Denise Alvarez.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“I worked for your father.”
“Doing what?”
“Accounting.”
Riley pulled out a chair and sat across from me.
I switched to speaker.
“Worked?”
“I resigned last spring.”
“Why?”
Denise gave a dry little laugh.
“That answer takes longer than you have right now.”
May you like
“I have time.”
“Maybe, but I don’t have courage indefinitely.”
