Final Deposit (13 page)

L
indsey drummed her fingers against the armrest of Kyle's two-door rental car, thankful that this time he was the one driving. Seeing Jamie McDonald standing behind her father in the bank line had shattered her nerves. Was McDonald working for someone? How far was he willing to go to get the money back?

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“What choice do I have?”

It was time to lay her cards on the table and tell her father everything. She'd prayed about it. Even played out scenario after scenario until her head pounded from the effort. She knew she had to do it.

She'd called the hospital to check on his progress. His speech was fine. There was no paralysis. The nurses' frequent neurological assessments showed him at almost back to normal. After another day or two of observation, they planned to send him home.

She grasped the leather armrest as Kyle turned into the hospital parking lot, fighting off second thoughts. The last thing she wanted to do was cause a stroke. But as she'd told Kyle, what choice did she really have?

She'd tell him about the two break-ins, the money in the spare tire and Jamie. She knew that if anything would get him to talk, it would be concern for her. Knowing her life could be in danger would convince him that they couldn't play games anymore. It had to.

Kyle pulled into the covered entrance of the hospital and stopped in front of the glass doors. He looked at her, concern obvious in his gaze. “Lindsey?”

“I'm okay.” She let out a deep breath and tried to relax—an impossibility the past few days. “You know you should be enjoying your vacation, or even working, for that matter.”

He shot her a wry grin. “We're not starting this conversation again, are we?”

She laughed. “No.”

“Tell you what. If you don't mind, I will go in to work for an hour or so. There are a couple of issues I'd like to deal with in person. Will that give you enough time?”

“Plenty. I plan to ease into the conversation as painlessly as I can.”

“You'll do fine.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Would you like me to pray?”

“Yeah. I'd appreciate that.”

She held on to his words as he prayed. The soothing timber of his voice and his calm helped her relax slightly. When he was finished, she added her own silent request.
Please, God. I need my father to listen to me.

She kept praying across the lobby, up the elevator and down the long, narrow hallway into her father's room.

“Hey, pumpkin. How are you doing?”

“I'm good.” She reached down to kiss him on the cheek. He looked one hundred percent better. His color was back and his upper left eyelid no longer drooped. “The question, though, is how are you?”

“Ready to go home.”

She set her purse on the narrow rolling table beside the bed and settled into a vinyl chair. “I thought you might say that. The nurse said you're doing better.”

“The ringing in my ears is gone as well as the blurred vision.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. Another good sign. “I'm okay. Really.”

“And your hip?”

“The pain is almost gone.” He reached for a glass of water that sat beside her purse. “I am sorry for all that has happened the past few days. It wasn't your fault I got so upset. I know you were only trying to help. I just…I don't want you to worry. Everything will be fine.”

She shook her head. “Your house was broken into, Daddy—”

“What?”

She clasped her hands together, irritated at the unsubtle way she'd brought up the subject. Why couldn't she have reined in her emotions and dealt with this situation using common sense and a bit of tact? She'd wanted to. Planned to. But the entire situation made her too frustrated.

She glanced at the monitor. His heartbeat was still steady. “I don't want to upset you again. If—”

“Wait a minute.” He pushed himself up to a sitting position. “What are you talking about, Lindsey? What happened?”

She swallowed hard, trying to figure out where to start. The break-in? The sixty-five thousand dollars? Jamie McDonald? She decided to start at the beginning with the attempted break-in, and finish with Jamie McDonald on the surveillance tape.

By the time she was done, his eyes were wide with horror. “If anything happened to you, I'd never forgive myself.”

“I'm fine, Daddy. Really.”

“Have you called the police?”

“They've been out to the house. Twice. And Kyle convinced me to stay with his sister, just in case they decided to come looking at my house.”

Her father shook his head. “You should have told me about the break-ins when they happened, Lindsey.”

“I tried. You had a stroke.”

“If you'd told me about the break-ins, I would have listened.”

She leaned forward and caught his gaze. “How was I supposed to convince you that something was wrong when you decided to go into business with a complete stranger, sell all of Mom's figurines, cash in your life-insurance policy and invest your entire retirement in some…some…”

Some Internet scam.

Her stomach roiled. She couldn't bring herself to say the words out loud.

“I guess I can see how you might worry about Abraham.” He fumbled with the pillow behind him, his brow beaded with dots of perspiration. “I didn't know him. I never really understood where he got my name.”

Lindsey paused. Was he admitting that at least he suspected he'd never see any money from Mr. Omah? “It's all related, isn't it? The life-insurance check. The money in the spare tire. Jamie McDonald.”

He stared out the window, nodding. A pigeon perched on the windowsill, its iridescent gray-and-purple feathers shining in the early-afternoon sun. The bird flapped its wings and flew away. Her father watched as if he wished he could fly away and leave all this behind. She could certainly understand the feeling.

“I cashed in the life-insurance policy because I needed the money to pay back what I'd borrowed to pay Abraham,” he finally admitted.

Except for the steady pulse of the heart monitor and a voice drifting in from outside, the room became quiet.

But she wasn't ready to stop yet. “So you borrowed money to pay Abraham and then when Abraham didn't pay up, you were stuck with another debt?”

“I don't owe Abraham anything. It's a slam-dunk business deal. And he will give me my share.” His jaw tightened in anger. “Lawyer fees. Absentee-collector fees. Tax fees. You wouldn't believe these government officials we're dealing with. Every time we take a step forward they slap us with these ridiculous fees.”

Lindsey swallowed hard. “And it's never crossed your mind that Abraham might be pocketing those fees?”

“How could you even think that? How can you continue to insist that Abraham is some low-class crook?”

Because he is!

His pulse quickened on the monitor and Lindsey knew she had to back off, away from Abraham, on to a hopefully less painful question. “What about McDonald?” she prodded carefully. “How'd you meet him?”

“McDonald met me at the bank to pick up the money. That was it. There was nothing sinister about the situation at all.”

“Except when he decided to get the cash on his own.”

“You don't have any proof that Jamie was responsible for the break-ins, so you can't blame him. It could easily be a coincidence. Crime is up.” Her father sounded if he was trying to convince himself as much as her. “Besides, he was just doing his job.”

“Who does Jamie work for, Daddy?”

Her father avoided her gaze. “You worry too much.”

“So that's it. Just like with Abraham, it's still none of my business.”

“All Abraham asked me to do was let him transfer money into my account so his corrupt government didn't confiscate it. Since when is that a crime?”

“He took your life savings, Daddy.”

He continued staring at the bed, avoiding her gaze. “All I've ever wanted was to make sure you were okay. To take care of you, and your mother before she died. I…I thought I could fix what was wrong with her. You have to believe that, pumpkin. And now…if anything were to happen to you…”

Lindsey's heart was breaking as he confessed. “Mama dying wasn't your fault.”

“All we needed was a few more months.” He clawed at the sheet, pulling it into a wrinkled ball between his fingers. “There were other alternative treatments that might have worked.”

“No, Daddy. It was her time. God was ready to take her home. And she was ready to go.”

Lindsey shook her head, wishing her father could let go of the heavy guilt he'd carried with him since her mother's death. He had done everything he could for her mother. No one could fault him on that. He'd loved her for forty years. Letting go was hard. But how could she get him to understand that in order to go on with his life that was exactly what he had to do? Let go of her. Not forget her—neither of them would ever do that. But the spiral of depression her death had triggered was dangerous. For both of them.

She tried to justify her father's actions. Sometimes forgiving oneself was harder than forgiving someone else. Did he really blame himself for his mother's death? Why? Because he hadn't been able to do enough? Because he hadn't been able to save her?

Kyle had blamed himself for his brother's death. She'd blamed herself for not discovering the mess her father had gotten into before he'd sent Abraham that first dime. But the truth was, neither of them could change the past. No one could.

So where did she go from here?

“Where's the money, Lindsey?”

Her father's question yanked her away from her thoughts. She blinked. “The money?”

“The insurance money.” The gentleness in his voice had faded.

“Back in the bank where it belongs.”

He shook his head. “I have to give Jamie the money.”

“And what about Abraham?”

“I'll worry about that. I told you I would.”

Tears filled her eyes. They were going in circles again.

She pushed herself up from the chair—she had to get away for a minute before she said something she'd regret. “I'll be back.”

She escaped into the bathroom and pushed the large wooden door shut behind her. Bracing her hands against the sink, she stared into the bathroom mirror. Her mother's eyes looked back at her. Brown with dark rims. Long lashes. Strong, yet vulnerable at times.

God, I miss her, too. So much.

She missed her sense of humor. Missed her sage advice. Missed eating dinner together as a family, and playing board games past midnight until none of them could stay awake.

If only this were a three-hour game of Monopoly where she could pay fifty dollars to get out of jail, or pass go to collect two hundred dollars. But it wasn't. She didn't know anything about this game. Except that she didn't want to play anymore.

 

Kyle worked to focus on his laptop's screen. With today's stringent liability laws, if something went wrong, the corporation and its stockholders could be harmed. Which was a situation to be avoided at all costs. The bottom line was that there could be no mistakes in his work. His full evaluations included in-depth research and cross-references far beyond the scope of Google. And it all had to be done not only discreetly, but within the boundaries of privacy laws. That's why he'd spent the past ten-plus years ensuring he knew the science of due diligence and contract language like the back of his hand.

But the words on his screen kept blurring together because all he could see clearly at the moment was Lindsey.

Closing his eyes only made her image sharper. This was a habit he was going to have to break if he was ever going to get any work done. Although he wasn't so sure he wanted to break it.

She'd looked up at him when he'd dropped her off at the hospital. Chin set at a determined angle. Lips pressed together like a soldier marching off to war. He'd wanted to play hero in that moment, scooping her up in his arms and tell her to forget everything that had happened the past few days.

Yep. He was falling for her. Hard.

Wait a minute.
He'd worked long and hard to ensure that his company could outperform the competition—he couldn't now turn around and make a fatal mistake because a pretty girl had walked into his life. Not that he didn't want a wife and a home someday, but he tended to look at life efficiently, logically. There wasn't room for a wife and a home right now. But there was Lindsey.

He rolled his chair back from the table he was using as a desk and grabbed his coffee cup from the counter behind him. He took a sip. Ugh. Lukewarm.

His cell phone rang. He picked it up on the second ring. Caller ID identified his partner was checking in.