Chương 3
“I was managing everything.”
“That was the problem.”
Richard stood.
His cheeks had gone red.
Emily felt her body respond before her mind did. Shoulders tighter. Breath shallower. The old readiness.
Richard had never hit her.
He had never needed to.
His anger filled rooms efficiently enough.
Diane must have noticed too.
“Sit down,” she said.
Richard stared at her.
She did not repeat herself.
He sat.
Margaret folded her hands in her lap.
“Tell them about Eastbridge.”
Richard looked at the floor.
“Richard.”
He adjusted his glasses.
“It was a holding company.”
“For what?”
“Investments.”
“What investments?”
No answer.
Margaret turned toward David.
“Show the next one.”
Richard said sharply, “Mom.”
The screen changed.
Eastbridge had transferred most of Margaret’s money two days later into an escrow account tied to a commercial development in Dayton.
Diane recognized the name.
“Hawthorne Plaza?”
Richard looked at her.
“You told me that deal was funded by partners.”
“It was.”
“With your mother’s money?”
“Partly.”
“You said you only had seventy-five thousand in it.”
“I did.”
“At first.”
Noah spoke from the elevator.
“So where does Emily come into this?”
Richard ignored him.
Noah stepped forward.
“Dad.”
Emily almost told him to stop.
Then she caught herself.
She had spent six years wishing someone would ask Richard that exact question.
She was not going to rescue him from it now.
Richard took off his glasses and cleaned them with the bottom of his shirt.
It was a nervous habit. Emily had forgotten it.
“I made a short-term transfer,” he said. “The development hit a financing problem. We were going to lose the property.”
Margaret’s mouth tightened.
“You took my money.”
“I borrowed it.”
“Without asking.”
“I had authority.”
“You had power of attorney for my medical bills.”
“And financial authority.”
“For necessary expenses.”
“I was protecting family assets.”
“What family assets? Hawthorne Plaza wasn’t mine.”
Richard put his glasses back on.
“It was going to be.”
Diane stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“The project had upside.”
“Don’t say upside to me.”
“It was a good deal that ran into timing problems.”
Emily almost smiled.
There was her father.
Not thief.
Not liar.
A man inconvenienced by timing.
David spoke carefully. “The issue isn’t whether Mr. Carter hoped the investment would succeed. The issue is that Margaret’s funds were transferred into an entity he controlled without disclosure, and then the family was told Emily had taken them.”
Richard turned toward Emily.
“You had access to that account.”
“Yes.”
“You had argued with me about Hawthorne.”
“Yes.”
“You told me I was risking everything.”
“You were.”
“You threatened to report me.”
“To Grandma.”
Richard looked at Margaret.
Emily felt the old evening opening around her.
The kitchen table.
The glass of bourbon beside Richard’s hand.
His voice telling her she was twenty-six and thought an accounting degree made her the smartest person in every room.
Her voice saying she did not need a degree to know taking money from his mother without permission was wrong.
She had not known he had already taken it.
She had only seen a draft financing sheet showing an unexplained capital contribution.
He had insisted it was a partner advance.
She had told him she was leaving the family business.
That was what had frightened him.
Not the argument.
Her leaving.
Because once Emily no longer worked for Carter Property Services, someone else might look at the books.
“You left the house that night,” Richard said.
Emily nodded.
“And by morning the money was gone.”
“It had already been authorized.”
“That’s not what we knew then.”
“You knew.”
Richard’s eyes met hers.
There it was.
The one piece of the night he could not outsource to paperwork.
“You knew,” Emily repeated.
Diane whispered, “Richard.”
He looked at his wife.
“I panicked.”
No one moved.
Richard leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Hawthorne was falling apart. The lender gave us forty-eight hours. I had personally guaranteed part of the debt. If the deal collapsed, we could’ve lost the house.”
Diane blinked.
“What?”
“I was trying to fix it.”
“Our house?”
“I said could have.”
“You told me the house was never tied to the business.”
“It wasn’t exactly tied to it.”
“What does exactly mean?”
Richard’s voice rose. “It means financial situations are more complicated than one document on a giant television.”
Sophie flinched.
Richard saw it.
His mouth closed.
The shame on his face lasted less than a second, but Emily saw that too.
He lowered his voice.
“I’m sorry, Soph.”
Sophie did not answer.
Diane put an arm around her.
Richard looked back at Emily.
“You said you were quitting. You said you were going to Mom. I needed time.”
“So you blamed me.”
“I thought I could replace the money.”
“You called me a thief.”
“I thought I could fix it before it became permanent.”
“You told Mom I had a gambling problem.”
Diane looked at Richard.
Emily had not planned to say that.
Richard’s face changed.
Diane’s voice became very small.
“You told me you found casino withdrawals.”
“I said there were cash withdrawals.”
“No. You said casinos.”
“Diane—”
“You said she had been going to Indiana.”
“I was trying to make sense of—”
“You made it up.”
Richard rubbed both hands over his face.
Emily looked toward the windows.
Chicago stretched below them in thousands of square patches of light. Somewhere far beneath, a siren moved down Lake Shore Drive. A red airplane light blinked above a tower and disappeared behind cloud.
She had lived in the penthouse eight months and still had not bought curtains for the guest room.
That suddenly seemed urgent.
A stupid thought.
A normal thought.
She held on to it.
Diane sat beside Margaret.
“How long did you know?”
Margaret’s fingers tightened.
“That something was wrong? Since that week.”
Emily turned.
Richard looked at his mother.
“You never said that.”
“No.”
“Why?”
May you like
Margaret was silent long enough that nobody helped her.
Finally she said, “Because I was a coward.”
