Inside Traitors

by David Allen

  Steve flipped the page and started back at the beginning of the document. He scanned the first page of the letter again and studied the section that described how all the money for the trust was provided for.

  A few tears started to well up in his eyes as he read through the entries. The first items in the list were from the life insurance policies that were taken out on his father. My dad must have loved me if he took out all of these policies, Steve thought.

  Below the life insurance policy entries was entry for the estate of his mother and father. The monies from the estate financed almost half of the entire trust fund. His parents did not die penniless like his uncle had told him. Everything that Jack told him about his parents was turning out to be nothing but lies.

  The screen door that led from the porch into the house opened with a squeak. Karen Jackson walked out carrying two glasses of iced tea for the boys. Steve was so intent on studying the letter that he didn’t hear the door or the sound of Mrs. Jackson walking over to him.

  “I bought you two some iced tea,” Karen said softly. She handed one of the glasses to Luke. “Steve, would you like some iced tea?” she asked.

  “No thanks,” Steve responded. His eyes remained fixed on the paper. “Maybe later.”

  Karen put the glass down on the porch railing. The pained look on Steve’s face almost made her cry. She sat on the porch stoop next to Steve and put her arm around him.

  “Your parents must have loved you very much Steve. To have set up that trust fund for you in case something happened to them means that they cared for you a lot. They were thinking of you when they did that.”

  “But why did Jack have to lie to me?” Steve asked. His tears started to flow. “Why did he have to steal their money?”

  “Steve, I don’t know why Jack did what he did. But don’t let your mind confuse your mom or dad with your Uncle Jack. They are very different people. Your parents loved you very much and Joe and I love you. You must always be sure to remember that.”

  “Thanks Mrs. Jackson,” said Steve. “I think I will have some of that iced tea now.”

  Karen stood up and retrieved the iced tea for Steve.

  “You should try to finish up waxing your car Steve,” said Karen, as she handed Steve his drink. “It will help you to feel better. And Luke has been waiting very patiently for you for several hours.”

  Karen gave Steve a pat on his head and went back into the house. Joe was waiting right inside the door.

  “Is he doing any better?” asked Joe.

  “He will be OK,” said Karen. “Boy I would like to take that Uncle Jack and give him a swift kick right in the goddamn ass. What a scum.”

  “Yeah, me too,” said Joe. “Only I might be looking to aim somewhere other than his ass.”

  “This explains why he freaked out when you asked him about adopting Steve. That whole ugly episode makes a lot more sense now,” said Karen.

  “Yeah, it all makes sense now,” said Joe. “He thought we were trying to steal his bread and butter.”

  Joe turned toward the front door and looked out. “Hey Karen, Steve and Luke are back waxing the car,” he said excitedly. “Your talk must have helped.”

  * * *

  The sun was getting low on the horizon. The long rays of light bounced off of the highly polished hood of Steve’s Ford Mustang. Steve sat alone on the Jackson’s porch, staring down the narrow road that ran in front of the Jackson’s home.

  The letter about his trust fund was folded up next to him. The truth that the letter shared and the lies that the letter uncovered left Steve with a lot of questions and pain. Steve’s mind struggled to understand the reasons behind what Jack did. He fought back the pain as he patiently waited for his Uncle Jack to return home.

  The sound of the leaking muffler was the first sign that Steve’s wait was coming to an end. Steve heard the deep base tones long before the car could be seen. Steve ran over to Jack’s driveway before the car even rounded the last turn.

  Jack was unaware that Steve had turned eighteen. He remembered nothing of Steve’s age or his birth date. Jack also had no idea of the impact the recent birthday would have on his financial situation or the remainder of his life.

  Jack had received the trust fund payment for the prior month just like any other month for the past nine and a half years. He was fully expecting that the current month’s payment would be arriving any day. He never even thought about the money as coming from the trust fund anymore. In his mind he imagined the payments would keep coming forever.

  Jack slowed his car and pulled into his driveway. Steve was there waiting. Jack opened the car door and caught sight of Steve.

  “Hey Steve, I haven’t seen you round here in quite a while,” Jack said, as he got out of the car. “Wow, you really got big since the last time I saw you. What are you now, almost six feet?”

  Tears immediately started to flow from Steve’s eyes as he confronted Jack. “Jack, how could you have lied to me all these years? How could you have taken my parents money and lied to me?” Steve asked in between the sobs.

  Jack looked confused. He raised his eyebrows and put a goofy look onto his face.

  “Steve, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Jack, as he shrugged his shoulders. At first, Jack truly did not understand Steve’s words or their meaning.

  “I am talking about the trust fund Jack. The trust fund that was set up for me when my parents died. I know all about it Jack.”

  Steve raised his hand that held the letter from the bank. He stuck it out and waved it for Jack to see. For a moment the tears stopped.

  “I am eighteen years old now Jack. The bank sent me a letter explaining the whole thing. It shows all of the money that you took from my parents. I turned eighteen so the bank closed down the account. Now I know the truth.”

  Steve wiped his eyes and tried to catch his breath. Jack did not say a work. He just stood silently in front of Steve with a blank stare. Jack’s mind was busy trying to dig up any old memories regarding the trust fund. Slowly the memories were uncovered. The details started to come back. Jack began to realize what Steve was saying.

  “Oh yeah, that trust fund,” muttered Jack.

  “You didn’t even know that I turned eighteen, did you Jack?” Steve asked with a huff. “You don’t know anything about me and you don’t care about me. But you can steal my money. How could you have done it Jack? How could you have done this to my parents and me? My dad was your brother.”

  Jack’s look was somber. The memories were pretty clear now. The monthly check was from the kid’s trust fund, Jack thought to himself, and now the damn kid had it all figured out. Jack thought it was very unfortunate that Steve was now aware of the whole ugly lie.

  Jack stared at Steve. He looked through his tears and past his anguish. It was something that Steve mentioned about the trust fund that was starting to send up red flags in Jack’s brain.

  “What did you mean when you said they were closing out the trust fund?” Jack asked.

  “I turned eighteen Jack,” said Steve forcefully. “The trust fund was set up so that you only got the monthly payments until I was eighteen. After that, all the remaining money went to me.”

  The tears were now gone. Steve glared at Jack. “How could you have done it Jack?”

  Jack thought about Steve’s question for a few moments. He crossed his arms in front of himself and shifted his weight slightly. His face grimaced as he began to speak.

  “You listen to me Steve. Your parents wanted me to have that money. It was all outlined in that will of theirs. If I didn’t take you and the money, you would have ended up in some orphanage somewhere. You wouldn’t have had nobody. You would have been all alone. Look at yourself now. You didn’t make out so bad with me in the end.”

  “But you lied to me Jack,” said Steve. A few tears started to come back. “Everything you ever told me in my whole life was a lie. You said that my parents were broke when they died and that they did
n’t care about me. You were all I had Jack and all you gave me was lies. My whole life is a lie. How can you stand there and try to justify what you did? How could you even try to justify it?”

  Jack turned away and looked down at the ground. There was nothing that he could offer to Steve to right the wrong. He really didn’t even want to try. He had no response to Steve’s questions. He offered no explanation for his actions.

  Steve had expected something from Jack, an apology of some sort at least. Just a simple “I’m sorry”, would have been accepted. Jack gazed silently at the ground. He had nothing that he could offer to Steve.

  “Are you even sorry Jack? Are you even sorry that you did it?”

  Jack stared in silence. There were no words that he could offer. Steve accepted the silent rejection as Jack’s response. He started to walk back toward the Jackson’s home, but then turned back to face Jack.

  “I never want to talk to you and I never want to see you ever again,” Steve yelled.

  Three weeks after Steve confronted Jack about the trust fund, a moving van arrived in front of Jack’s home. The next morning Jack moved out without paying the last month’s rent. Jack left without telling Steve the words he needed to hear. There was no forwarding address and no good-bye and there was no apology for Steve.

  For several months, Steve and the Jackson’s heard reports that Jack had been seen around town. At first he was living out of a rundown motel that offered monthly rates. Then there were reports that he was living on the streets near the beach. After about six month passed, there were no more sightings and no more reports. Jack just vanished from sight.

  The check for the remaining trust fund money sat in Steve’s wallet for several weeks before he decided on what to do with it. He ended up taking out a bank CD with twenty seven thousand. He requested a check for the remaining twenty thousand. The check was wrapped in a small gift box and presented to Joe and Karen as repayment for all that they did for him growing up.

  Joe and Karen would not accept the money, but Steve got very persistent. After several heated arguments over the money, Joe and Karen finally accepted the check. Without Steve knowing it, they put the money into a trust account for him.

  Several months passed by. The days got longer and hotter. In early June, Steve Peterson graduated from high school. Joe and Karen had been pushing for him to attend college but Steve did not want to go. He had enough of school. He wanted to work on computers.

  Steve was offered a full time programming position with a great salary from the company where he was an intern. The offer was very good for someone just out of high school. Steve accepted the offer and worked at the job for several months, but he soon started to have other ideas.

  One night after work, Steve told Joe of his idea to start his own software company. He would add some needed functionality to the accounting software package that he developed and would begin by marketing the package to small businesses.

  Joe listened intently to Steve’s plan. He backed him one hundred percent. Steve took the remaining money from the trust fund money and added it to what he had left from the initial sale of his accounting system. He had almost thirty five thousand dollars.

  Another twenty thousand dollars for start-up costs came from Joe and Karen. Steve called the money from the Jackson’s a loan. In reality Joe and Karen had no intentions of ever taking repayment. The money was Steve’s own money from the trust fund that Joe was just giving back to him.

  The first corporate headquarters for Peterson Software was a small storefront in a strip mall. The fifteen hundred square foot office space held a small office for Steve, a half dozen networked computers, some file servers and little else.

  For the first three months, Steve was the only employee of Peterson Software. That all changed in the fourth month when Steve sold two copies of his new and improved accounting system. Each sale netted the company fifty thousand dollars. Peterson Software was under way.

  Within the next year, Peterson Software had grown to four full-time employees. The company had seven system sales under their belt and Steve had several signed contracts for additional sales. The company had all the work that they could handle and quickly outgrew the small office space.

  Steve found himself spending too much time running the day to day operation of the business. He needed someone who he could trust to run the business side of the house and oversee accounting. He convinced Joe Jackson to come on board to help him out with running the business and to head up an accounting department.

  With Joe’s help, Steve was able to devote his full attention to product development and the company never looked back.

  By the end of the second year of operation, the company took in over a million dollars in revenue before expenses. The sales team could barely keep up with the inquiries that came in daily from potential customers. The rapidly expanding company moved to a new five thousand square foot location in downtown Tampa.

  In the third year, sales of the accounting package continued to do extraordinarily well. Steve and his team had two new products that were well into development. The support side of the business really started to take off with all of the new customers wanting custom solutions. Steve had to add seven additional employees.

  Peterson Software was growing faster than Steve could have ever imagined. The new products were received well and many of the companies that purchased the original accounting system signed contracts for the new accounts payable and general ledger systems. Soon, Peterson Software occupied an entire floor of a downtown Tampa high-rise.

  Within five years of the start of the company, Peterson Software was turning over a million dollars a year in pure profit. The company was still growing rapidly. Peterson Software became the fastest growing corporation in the state of Florida.

  Chapter 38 - A Calling

  Steve Peterson gained the enviable title of multi-millionaire during Peterson Software’s sixth year of operation. His corporation thrived under his gentle handed guidance and hard work. Peterson Software had made a name for itself in the software industry. Their software products became the industry standard for small to medium sized businesses.

  As Peterson Software grew and prospered, Steve Peterson’s personal life continued to languish. Outside of the Jackson’s, Steve had no one that he was really close with. He longed for a girlfriend. He wished for someone to share his life and his newfound wealth.

  Much of the inner turmoil from Steve’s youth still remained. The trouble that Steve had with the girls of his youth was still alive and well in his life as an adult. His inner fears and doubts prevented him from pursuing any type of a close female relationship.

  The demands of the fast growing corporation acted as an excuse for Steve for not finding a girlfriend. As time went on, he was even letting himself believe his own stories. At night, when he laid in bed alone, was when the excuses and the lies no longer worked. That was when he would feel as if he would be alone for the rest of his life.

  Steve’s excuses became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Steve would drown his loneliness with hard work. He had to stay busy because when he was busy, he wasn’t lonely. But when he was busy, he couldn’t meet anyone.

  Karen Jackson was always working to fix Steve up on a date, but nothing ever panned out. Steve would hem and haw for several weeks and then the outcome would always be the same; he had pressing business issues. He did not have the time for a date.

  Karen knew the truth. The truth was that Steve Peterson, the good-looking, twenty four year old multi-millionaire had been on only one date in his entire life, and it was a bad date at that. Karen feared that Steve would never have another. She started to get desperate.

  Karen talked Joe into having a surprise birthday party for Steve when he turned twenty-five. Steve thought he was just coming over for dinner with Joe and Karen. When Steve arrived he was surprised to find that Luke had come home from college to be at the party. Steve found that Karen also had a surprise for him. Her name wa
s Judy.

  Judy was the daughter of a close friend of Karen. She was the latest girl who was going to be just perfect for Steve. Karen’s plan was to have Steve meet Judy while she and Joe were at his side for support. Maybe he would gain a little more self-confidence with them there.

  Steve was excited to see Luke. It had been over six month since the last time the two were together. Steve could not get over how much he had changed. The two quickly caught up on the latest happenings in their lives. It was like old times in the Jackson household.

  When Judy arrived, Karen introduced her around. It didn’t take Steve long to figure out what was going on. Instead of feeling secure in the environment, he felt as if he was on display. He felt as if he was going to be the show for the evening. To put it kindly, Steve kind of freaked out.

  The evening went downhill from there. When it was all over, Judy left in a huff, Karen cried, Joe said “I told you so” about twenty times and Steve went home alone. After that evening, Karen was forced out of the role of matchmaker for good.

  The unhappiness that followed the surprise birthday party sent Steve on a non-stop workaholic frenzy that lasted more than six months straight. From sun up to sun down, Steve hid his feelings of sorrow in his work. During that time, Peterson Software launched a new product and signed scores of new contracts.

  Steve’s harried effort pushed the company to surprising and unexpected new heights. The year-end revenue numbers were more than three times the previous year. The effort also helped Steve Peterson win the Tampa Businessman of the Year award from the Chamber of Commerce.

  When Steve was notified about winning the award, he was set to respond that he would not be able to attend the awards ceremony or the following dinner. It would be too awkward without a date, he thought. And besides, he was very busy with his work at Peterson Software.

  Joe explained to Steve that he at least had to attend and accept the award. Reluctantly, Steve agreed with Joe. His plan was to leave the function as soon as the awards were handed out.