Page 111 of This Time Around
Her father gave a heavy sigh and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “I guess I’m not surprised. This is the way Priscilla wanted it. I told her it was a bad idea, but then everything got complicated and?—”
“What are you talking about?”
He clasped his hands together and brought them down like a slow hammer. “Your mother didn’t hide that money up there, Allie. And she wasn’t the mastermind behind the investment scam.”
“Who was?”
“Me.”
She stared at him, pretty sure she’d heard wrong. “What?”
He unclasped his hands and put them over hers again. “The funds, the investments, the plan to skim a little off the top—that was all my doing. When I got in over my head, your mother caught on. She tried to help me fix things, but by then it was too late.”
“I don’t understand.” Allie swallowed hard, her throat making a funny click. “So you hid the money up there?”
“No. That was your grandmother.”
“She was in on it?”
Her voice came out louder than she meant it to, but the guard didn’t turn. A frantic feeling swelled in her chest, like something with sharp claws scrambling to get out.
“No, baby. Your mom was telling the truth. Your grandma tucked that money away for you.”
Tears filled her eyes, though Allie had no idea why. For her grandmother’s sacrifice? For not believing her mom? For the evaporation of the image of her father as the kindly, unlucky victim in her mother’s crime?
She stared at the Ficus tree in the corner, at the trio of dead leaves on the floor beside it. A heating vent switched on, sending the brittle carcasses tumbling into the wall.
Allie looked back at her father. “You mean the money’s legitimate?”
He looked down at his hands. “It started out that way. Grandma tucked it away for years and years. She never really trusted banks or investors or lawyers.” He gave a hollow little laugh. “Considering the way things turned out with me, it seems her fears were justified.”
“So what happened?”
“I knew she’d been socking money away for you, so when things went south with the investments, I tried to get my hands on it. I thought if I just had a fresh infusion of cash, I could course correct. Launder it through the system, pay off the people who needed to be paid off, and eventually restock the coffer.”
“But grandma found out?”
“No. Your mother did.” He sighed. “She was mad as hell, but by then I was in too deep. She didn’t want me to go to prison, of course. She tried to get the money back out, but it was too late. We got caught.”
“You mean you got caught.” She was looking at her father differently now, seeing someone she hardly recognized.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right there.” He scrubbed his hands down his face again, looking incredibly tired. “The whole thing was my deal from the start. Your mom was just trying to help me get out of it.”
“So—so—mom took the fall? To help take pressure off you?”
Allie’s brain felt like it was spinning inside her skull, and it occurred to her she had more in common with her mother than she’d realized. Misjudging a man, making self-destructive decisions when it came to love—Allie hadn’t sucked that out of her thumb.
“It was something like that,” her father was saying “Anyway, I’ve been trying to make it right. That’s what all these meetings with the lawyer have been about. Not an appeal. An attempt to turn it around, maybe negotiate a lighter sentence for your mom.”
Allie frowned, still trying to make sense of it all. “But I told you about finding the chest the last time I was here,” she said. “You didn’t seem to know anything about it.”
He shrugged and gave a guilty look. “I was hoping you’d take my advice and stay out of there. Figured if the money was still there when I got out, I could help you invest it or something.”
A sick feeling throbbed in the pit of her stomach. She stared at her father, then shook her head. “This can’t be real.”
“We all make mistakes, Alliecakes. Some of us just do a better job than others at covering it up.”
Allie swallowed hard. “I guess that’s true.”
