Page 31 of Brenna, Brat

“From what the attorneys have said, it’s upwards of a hundred sixty million.”

“Dollars? One hundred sixty million dollars? That’s…” Unbelievable? Yes, except that he was nodding at me.

“If it happened, I didn’t know about it,” he said. “As far as I’m aware, my department is and always has been completely legitimate. I’ve never seen anything that looks strange or untoward.”

“Good. But?” I asked, because I’d heard a lot of doubt in his words.

“But that might be a reason that he put me in charge. He could have been playing me.”

“Your own dad was playing you?” It sounded far-fetched, but Campbell had started to nod.

“Maybe it gave him an advantage to have me there, because he knew that I wasn’t sharp enough to catch on to what was happening. He knew that I didn’t have the experience to recognize signs that other people would have seen flashing loud and clear. Maybe I just didn’t notice what was going on right in front of my face.”

“Maybe it wasn’t happening in front of your face,” I suggested. “Maybe your stuff was legitimate, like a cover for the rot underneath. What about Carrington?”

“It’s worse for her. She happened to go to the Bahamas on vacation yesterday, which made them claim that she was trying to flee the country. She’s on her way back home with a guarantee that they’re not going to swarm her at the airport, but I don’t know how much I believe. Stuff from the sealed indictment was already leaked to the press,” he said. “It seems as if they’re sure that my sister is in on it with my dad.”

“Is she? You said that Carrington and your dad are a lot alike,” I reminded him. “You also told me that she would do whatever it took to win, that she tripped other girls in her cross-country races.”

He looked at me and I saw more doubt in his eyes. He didn’t want to think so, but he didn’t know.

“I feel responsible for all the employees,” he started to say, and yes, that was an issue. But other problems were occupying my thoughts.

“Are you going to be indicted, too? Do you have a lawyer?”

“I don’t know if I will be, but I hope not. I don’t have an attorney of my own, but I’ve been talking to my dad’s team and—”

“No, no,” I said. “That can’t be good.” It definitely wasn’t, not if his father was the kind of person who shoplifted while with his child, and the kind of person who would set up his son in a position of power in order to use him. “Those lawyers are working for him, not for you. They could blame you for everything to try to get him off the hook.”

“Except this has been going on for years,” he pointed out. “Everything has been a lie, down to the foundations of the company. How would that have been my fault?”

“Then they could say that you happily joined in on the deception. I don’t put anything past anybody, and you need your own attorney.” Luckily, I knew one and he was smart. I pulled out my phone again, noticing that my hands shook as I did.

Campbell talked to my sister Juliet’s fiancé for a while. Beckett didn’t practice this kind of law, but he knew people and he seemed to know what to do. After a while, they got on with someone else, one of Beckett’s colleagues, to discuss things with her. I put in earbuds and continued to work on the atelier issues. I’d watched enough crime shows to know that people could be compelled to testify. I didn’t want to have to repeat anything I’d overheard and anything I’d already been told, I would goahead and forget. Like the thing about his dad shoplifting? Yes, that had been shocking in the extreme, but I already didn’t remember it.

Due to my earbuds, I didn’t know that the conferencing was over. I nearly jumped out of my skin, like one of the scary prehistoric animals in a video in the gallery, when something touched my shoulder. “Holy Mary!” I yelled, but it was only Campbell.

“Sorry,” he said, “sorry. You didn’t hear me calling your name.” He looked at the wall, which I was spraying with bleach. “What’s the problem here?”

“A leak in the roof and the landlord’s repair guy hasn’t fixed it yet.”

He looked around. “Seems like there are a few issues. The floor over there is spongy.” He also tested the area below where I was trying to get rid of what looked like mold. “Do you want me to go up on the roof and look around?” He glanced at the ceiling. “If there’s this much damage to the wall, I would be a little concerned about how much weight it could take up there.”

“No, I don’t want you to fall through and land in here or in any other of the units, either. This is the only one occupied and we might not be able to get you out.” I also looked above our heads, where a dark stain had been spreading. When I had seen this place, everything had been bright white and freshly painted.

“Painting over it won’t help,” he said, reading my mind. “Neither will using the hair dryer like you have been.” He looked at the appliance on the floor. I’d stopped trying to dry things,though, because the outlet nearest to the wet area kept shooting sparks. “It looks like this section of plaster’s going to have to come out once the leak is repaired.”

Before he started poking the wall and noticing that it was also spongy, I suggested that we leave. “I’m starving,” I said. “We could go out to eat, my treat.” I had no idea what his money situation looked like anymore. If it all came from ill-begotten gains, could he keep it?

“No, I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to run into anyone I know or deal with people who have seen the news,” he told me. “Carrington and my mother aren’t going to leave their houses for the rest of their lives.”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed, because you’re innocent,” I said, which I firmly believed to be true about him.

“I’m not embarrassed—much,” he qualified. “But I also don’t want to get questions that I’m not prepared to answer.”

“You don’t have to answer. All you do is look at them. You stare straight into their eyes like they’re a pile of dog poo on the sidewalk. Like this,” I said, and demonstrated.

“You stare straight at dog crap? Most of us look away.”

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