Page 111 of Ten Beach Road

Nikki could hardly breathe. She stared at her chipped fingernails, caked with dirt that wouldn’t come out, at her rough, chapped hands. She thought about all the beautiful clothes she’d been forced to sell. “But I was supporting Mom because you said you had to plow all your profits back into your business.” As Nicole should have been, except that she hadn’t been able to bear watching their mother continue to struggle after all those years of doing without while Mom tried to support them.

He shrugged. “I just had a feeling I might need to keep something aside, not in my name. You know, for emergencies.”

She studied her brother’s face as the enormity of his betrayal sank all the way in. “It’s in my name and belongs to me. But you never told me about it.” He’d stolen from her like he had everyone else and then never mentioned this account, which could have saved her business and her good name. Because in his mind her money was his money.

“Yeah. But the best thing is it’s right near here. I divided it up between two small banks, where no one would think to look. So you could go and make the withdrawals and bring the money to me today.” He must have actually looked at her face because he added, “And of course you could take a percentage of it to tide you over until I can return the money that got mixed up in the offshore accounts.”

“Gee, thanks.” She looked at the still-handsome and always-beloved face and grappled with what she’d refused to see behind it. Malcolm had always been the one she’d loved most—more than her husbands, her clients, her colleagues. More even than the few people she’d let close enough to call friends. And yet she had been nothing more to him than a person he could count on, which in Malcolm’s mind clearly meant to use in whatever way he saw fit.

“So, that’s why you’re here in this campground. Not because that Thanksgiving meant so much to you, but because the money’s nearby.” Her money. That he expected her to go retrieve and hand over so he could run farther and faster.

He shrugged again, not at all apologetically. He didn’t know her at all. Her own brother had no idea who she was or what she was made of. And he didn’t care to.

“Sure,” she said with the smile that she’d practiced and perfected over the years, the easy charming one that gave no clue to what she was really thinking and that she’d never before used on Malcolm. “Give me the banks and the account numbers, and I’ll go take care of it.”

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