Page 43 of Catching a Con Man

“Then where the hell is he?” I tore back through the foyer to the bedroom and searched his clothes. His phone was still in his pocket, along with a tattered-looking wallet and some work keys. And then I realised. His clothes. Where on earth had he gone without his clothes?

“What’s up?” asked Cam from the doorway. His brow was furrowed in concern, and his lips drew into a frown as I held up the jeans.

“Where the fuck is he?” I asked. “Where could he have possibly gone?”

“Has he taken anything with him?”

“Just…a dressing gown,” I said.

“Well, could he have-” Cam started, but was interrupted by the sound of my mother screaming.

“You BASTARD!” she shouted from somewhere else in the house, almost loud enough to make the walls shake.

“Oh God,” I muttered. She would never talk to any of her children like that. There was only one person…

We followed the sound of her further ranting to the conservatory, my father’s favourite place to fall asleep in his armchair after a long night working. My mother was hitting him with a blue paper folder, and as we watched, the papers fell loose and scattered to the floor. As soon as I had eyes on the contents, I was as angry as my mother.

I picked up the familiar piece of paper. It was Tyler’s history of foster care, written out in plain English.

“What the fuck?” asked Cam, taking it from me without asking.

“What the fuck?” I echoed rather more angrily as I stepped toward where my father cowered in his chair. It seemed my mother had noticed our presence, as she stepped back from the chair and threw the folder down in disgust.

“What did you do?” she asked him. “What thehelldid you do? Scare him off?Payhim off?”

“I did what needed to be done!” he protested. My father looked old. Dishevelled. Reduced. And I didn’t care one bit at that moment.

“Where the fuck is my boyfriend? Because if you’ve gotten in his head, if you have for one second made him believe he’s less than us because of his background…” I tailed off, leaving the rest unspoken.

“What will you do?” he asked, seeming to regain his confidence. “You don’t understand what I’ve done to keep this family together, to protect the wealth! Why would I allow some scrounger to come in and take it all from you? Youknowhe was using you for your money.”

“He wasn’t!” I wanted to grab my father by the throat, and I flexed my fingers as the thought crossed my mind.

“So what if he was?” asked my mother.

“You want to allow some gold-digging little bastard around our son?” my father asked. “Is that really what you want?”

“It’s what your father said about me, after all.” My mother delivered the blow quietly, and all the anger seemed to leech from the room. The tension was still there, bubbling. But I took a step backward as my mother moved back toward my father’s armchair, her voice cold. “And you know what? He was right.”

“But…you love me,” my father replied quietly.

“Of course. But I loved your money too, especially at first. Of course I did, Addison. I was a model. You were a billionaire. Isn’t that how it goes? Why did you shower me with presents and expensive holidays, if not to impress me with your wealth? Why would you tell me that you could provide for the rest of my life, if not to hope I fell in love with your money? So if you’re hoping that a gold digger won’t tear this family apart, you better startgrovelling. Because you’ve made this gold digger angry.”

“Where is he, Dad? Have you sent him home?”

“Penarth police station,” he muttered.

I was speechless. Fortunately, the usually quiet Cam was not. “You’re a real cunt, Dad.”

“Don’t you dare…” my father started, but one finger held up by my mother cowed him.

“You asked me to check up on Tyler to protect Ade,” Cam said. “Ade was presented with the information, and chose what to do with it. That you broke our trust by keeping a hard copy, by getting himarrested, is unconscionable. Don’t expect me to darken your door again.”

“But you live here!” my father said.

“Not anymore. Bye, Dad.” Cam left the room with the door open, knowing I’d follow him through it.

“I’m going to bail out the love of my life and convince him he’s good enough. And if I have to sign over half my bank balance to him to do that, then I will.”

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