by Lulu Pratt
“So, tell me then, tell me the truth!” she demanded.
“Which version of the truth would you like? The police seem to have all kinds of proof, financial irregularities stretching back for months, apparently.”
“I trusted you,” she said, and there was hurt in her voice that I didn’t understand.
“I trusted you, I guess we were both wrong,” I replied.
“I would never have helped you steal from my family or defraud your own!” she spat.
“I would never have asked you to!” I returned, my voice raised now.
There was a long silence, but I could hear her breathing heavily. I closed my eyes. I wanted to have it out with her, to hear all of what she had to say, to listen and understand. But at the bottom of it all was the fact that not only had she lied about who she was, she had continued the deception, and that meant that it was all a lie, everything that had happened. I had told her everything I had to tell, things I hadn’t told anyone else, and she had sat there and pitied me and spent those few precious nights in bed with me, and never told me who she really was, or why she had done it. The time for hearing her reasons had passed. I was out.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Far away from all of it, somewhere where I don’t have to kowtow to what anyone expects of me. I’m done with it all,” I said, my anger only increasing at the concern in her voice.
“I never meant for this to happen,” she said. “I have my reasons for doing what I did.”
“Freya,” I said her name tenderly, and it hurt to say it. “I can’t do this. Whatever you have done or not done, I am sure I will hear about it in court. Please do not contact me again.”
I hung up and lifted my arm to throw the phone into the sea, then caught myself and stopped. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt angrier with another person. How could I believe her version of events? I didn’t think she had set me up like Sean had hinted – there was no reason for her to do that, but she had certainly been there to watch me, to judge me. I thought about her inviting me on the night out with the Design team, I played right into her hands showing up drunk and upset. She had danced in front of me. She must have known I was watching, and she had me right where she wanted me. She did the same on the Dublin trip, the green dress, telling me that she was taped into it, long lingering goodbyes in the hallway. She was playing me, and I had been thinking with my dick. I picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it into the water. How could I have been so stupid? I made up my mind not to give her any more headspace, and instead, I turned my thoughts to what I was going to do next.
I had to continue like none of this was happening. I had to carry on. I couldn’t go back now. I had to believe that I was going to get out of this, and if that meant going forward with my plans with less money, or without the family business as a safety net, then that was what I was going to do. My phone buzzed again, and I checked it quickly to see if it was Freya calling back, but I knew it wouldn’t be. It was my father, and I couldn’t face talking to him right now. I ignored the call, swung my jacket over my shoulder and went back to the bike, sitting glistening in the sunshine.
Chapter 38
FREYA
I KNEW THAT seeing Drew again was going to be uncomfortable, but seeing him for the first time surrounded by my family was excruciating. He was working on a patch as we four sat in one of the offices with the lawyers. I had been summoned to Dynasty Games for a meeting. The lawyers wanted to talk to the family together about where we stood in relation to bringing a lawsuit, and how things had been ‘complicated somewhat’ by the arrest of Keegan Callahan. His name seemed to come up a hell of a lot. Every time they said it, I had to try not to visibly wince. My conversation with him two days earlier had confirmed everything I needed to know; there was more going on than the theft of a stupid game, and I had meant nothing to him. In fact, he thought I was part of the reason he was in trouble. I had been a complete fool. I had listened to his story, comforted him, and – yeah, why not admit it – I had fallen head over heels in love with him. What a pathetic idiot. I looked up and saw everyone looking at me. Clearly, I was supposed to say something.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not even able to think of an excuse for my total ineptitude.
“There’s nothing you need to add?” asked Beatrix. “Nothing you feel is important to share?”
“No,” I smiled. “Nothing.” What happened between Keegan and me didn’t need to be aired and made public.
“All right then,” said one of the lawyers; I hadn’t caught her name. “Then essentially, we wait, and try to get to the bottom of what is happening at Clover House and specifically with Keegan Callahan. There is clearly something a lot more serious going on, and until we know, we will hold off. But let me reassure you that everyone is well aware that we have a case to bring. It’s not a case of if, it’s a case of when.”
My dad tapped the table gently with both hands. “I think this sounds positive. It was a case of giving the guy enough rope to hang himself, really. These things catch up with people in the end.”
“We don’t know he has done anything yet, Dad,” I said, and Beatrix gave me a look that I knew from experience was meant to shut me up.
After the lawyers left, I went to talk to Drew as we needed to clear the air. He wasn’t at his desk, so I went out to the garden and found him sitting there, having a cigarette.
“Since when are you smoking again?” I asked, and he flinched in surprise at seeing me. “Calm down, I’m not your mom,” I laughed.
“It’s just the occasional one,” he said, and stubbed it out. “I’m going to stop. Just, stressed, you know?”
“I know,” I said. “Look, Drew, I’m sorry. I know I was unfair to you.”
“I shouldn’t have tried to control you,” he shrugged. “I got carried away.”
“We both did,” I said, sitting down beside him. “Hey, it looks like you were right after all. About Clover House. It was a bad idea.”
“That was your choice to make,” he sighed. He seemed so down, and I felt responsible.
“I was enjoying being friends again,” I said.
“Me too.” He smiled now, and I felt relieved to see it.
“I want us to be able to work together, even be friends, without all of that other stuff complicating things,” I said, trying to be as open as possible, even though my face was flushing with embarrassment.
He paused before replying. “You’re right, we should never have gone back there.”
“Friends?” I asked, nudging him with my shoulder.
“Friends,” he nudged me back.
“Thank goodness for that, I was fucking dreading this conversation,” I said, and he laughed.
“Me too.”
My parents were calling me back into the studio, so I went back inside and spent the next few hours listening to their plans for recovering from the loss of Animagic.
“We have to continue as if the lawsuit wasn’t going to happen. We cannot guarantee that anything will ever come of it, so we don’t have time to sit around doing nothing and waiting for it to be sorted,” my mom was saying. I could see, not for the first time, where Beatrix got her can-do attitude.
“The money situation is bad. There is a loan we can take to get us through, but we need some new irons in the fire, and we need them fast. Day-to-day running costs are covered, but we want to be able to keep Drew on. Paula is happy to have unpaid leave for a while, as her mom is moving and needs help with the packing.”
“And there’s this,” I said, pulling an envelope out of my handbag. “It’s not a lot, but it will help.”
Beatrix opened the bag and gasped. “Freya! There are thousands of dollars here…” She tipped the bag out, and my parents looked at me in astonishment.
“It’s savings, and money from working at Clover House. I have enough to live on for a while, so I am available for whatever,” I said. “What I mean is, I want to work to fix this. So, whatever you nee
d, whatever hours it takes, I can do it.”
“No,” my dad said firmly. “You have your plans. You’ve worked hard these past few years, and now is your time to go and do what you want to do.”
“And your lease at your apartment is almost up, so you have to go!” said Beatrix, smiling triumphantly.
“About that. I was thinking I could have my old room here, it would save money…”
I looked at my mom, whose eyes were filling up with tears, and I felt like shit. She wouldn’t feel like that if she knew that I had spent most of the previous week in bed with the man who was probably responsible for putting us in this situation.
“Okay, we will all think on this some more,” said Beatrix, and I could tell I was in for a talking to later. “But for now, we all need to be on the same page and working together.”
“We can get through this,” smiled Dad. “I started this whole thing in the shed in the yard, and if we could build it up then, we can do it again. Especially now we have you girls to help.”
I thought back to the games Dad had made when we were children. It was board games back then, but we were his chief testers. We would spend hours in his cluttered shed, playing his games and telling him how to improve them or coming up with new ideas. I loved painting the little pieces and pretending for hours in a fantasy world of my own invention.
“Dad!” I said, suddenly struck with inspiration. “Where are all your old games?”
“Ugh,” complained Mom. “They are in the basement, but he insists that they will come out and be put on display in the studio. We have been meaning to do it for ages. You know, a kind of ‘Dynasty Games development’ thing.”
“It would look great,” Dad said, giving her a look that I had seen many times when he had a project in mind.
“Can we do it now?” I asked, standing up.
“Now?” Dad looked baffled. “Well sure… but…”
“Great, you go get them, and I will clear some space here.” I didn’t give him time to protest.
“I’ve been asking him to sort them for over a year,” Mom sighed. “it’s going to be a lot of dust.”
As Dad disappeared to find the games and Mom went to get the vacuum cleaner, Beatrix helped me clear the table, stuffing the money back into the envelope. Drew came in and sat back down at his computer with a nod to each of us.
“Where did the money come from?” she asked.
“I told you…”
“Who keeps their savings and wages in one-hundred-dollar bills?” she hissed at me.
Chapter 39
KEEGAN
CHRIS AND I ATE outside most evenings. It was a chance to cool off after a day working on the land. He was a man of few words, never asking why my plans had suddenly changed, and why I had just appeared with my backpack. I suppose he had just thought of me as some sort of rich eccentric weirdo who could afford to change my mind when I felt like it. If it bothered him, he didn’t show it. There was plenty of room for me, and having an extra pair of hands around and someone who knew how to handle horses was all he really cared about. That and the money, of course. In fact, the only time I had seen any animation in him was when the money transfer had hit his account. He had shown me his balance on his battered old desktop computer screen and I had smiled, but he had raised his hand conspiratorially.
“I don’t need to know where it comes from,” he warned. “All I need to know is it’s there.”
Even with the work on the farmstead, I couldn’t avoid my father forever. The thing that clinched it was a voicemail from my mother, begging me to call them so we could ‘get to the bottom of things.’ I took a walk out over the fields, promising Chris I would check on the horses furthest from the farmhouse, giving me plenty of time to make the call. I took a couple of apples from the bowl on the table, and he rolled his eyes and muttered something about spoiling the horses.
“Keegan,” my dad answered. “It’s about time you returned my call. What the hell are you playing at? Disappearing off like that? If the cops go looking for you and you’re nowhere to be found, do you realize how guilty you will look?”
“Da, I’m not an idiot,” I replied. “The cops know where I am, and I’m within state lines. So, calm down.”
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“Where are you?” I copied him. There was no need for him to know where I was. He wasn’t usually interested.
“Sean said…” he began, and then paused.
“Yeah, can we maybe drop all the ‘Sean saids’?” I asked, aware how peevish I sounded.
“He is worried about you.”
“He is worried about himself,” I replied firmly, and he wisely chose to change tack.
“What have they said?” he urged. “They are telling us very little, you know.”
“Bullshit, Dad,” I sighed. “There is no way they are telling the CEO very little. If you want my version of events then I will give it to you, but don’t lie to me.”
He backtracked. “They aren’t telling us what you have said to them.”
“So, what you are asking me is whether I have done any of the shit they are accusing me of.”
“No…”
“Yes, and aside from that, who exactly is accusing me? Who discovered the so-called financial anomalies they are going on about?” I stopped and leaned on the wooden fence, taking an apple out of my pocket for the old shire horse rolling in the dry grass. He got up heavily and came to me.
“Why does it matter? It’s done now. I want to hear your side of the story.” Dad sounded exasperated.
“If I suspected any of you of skimming money from the business, I would have confronted you. Sean says Freya set me up, is that true?”
“Sean might have thought that, at one point, but he was wrong. When he called the authorities, it was too late. He didn’t know he was getting you into trouble,” he said, although I wondered if even he believed what he was saying.
“Like hell he did.” I laughed aloud and frightened the horses.
“Look, we know you took the Cre8ure idea from Dynasty Games. We can get past that. But the money is another thing…”
“You know?” I asked, confused. “What exactly do you know?”
“We know that the game concept is too close to theirs to be coincidence. Sean…” He paused here. “Sean worked it out. But look, I know we put you under pressure, I know you were thrown in at the deep end. The lawyers reckon we can get away with it. It might cost us, but we are good for it. I don’t care about that! But we need to know the truth about the irregularities in the accounts. I can’t protect you from the consequences of those.”
“Sure, Dad,” I said. “Here’s my version of events. I worked really fucking hard for you. I didn’t steal ideas. I didn’t steal games. I didn’t steal money. Now, is that simple enough for you? Or do you need to put ‘Sean says’ at the beginning of it to gain any credibility?”
“Keegan, you know there is more to it than that. I might not be as active in the company as I once was, but I’m not totally oblivious. I know that you have transferred the shares you got when you turned twenty-five to Mick. What are you playing at?” There was a warning in his voice.
“No, Dad,” I said, my tone matching his. “I want to ask the questions now. Tell me this, do you believe me when I tell you I have done nothing wrong?”
“Keegan, that’s not fair. I have seen the evidence in black and white. The figures speak for themselves. We need you to come back and explain it so we can work this out. Whatever has gone on, we need to work together to find a way out of this mess,” he said.
“It’s a simple question. Do you believe me?” I repeated, tears beginning to prick my eyes as the answer became very apparent without him even having to speak.
“Of course we believe you,” said another voice. I might have known Ma would have been listening.
“Thanks, Ma,” I said, and hung up before the stinging behind my eyes could reach my voice.
I put the phon
e in my pocket and kept walking, out over the fields and all the way into town. I sat down wearily outside the café on the painted wooden garden furniture and ordered a coffee. The waitress brought me coffee and a huge slice of cake that she said was the last piece, so there was no charge. The kindness of the small gesture touched me, and I thanked her with what was probably too much enthusiasm. Her hair was almost the color of Freya’s, and I allowed myself the indulgence of remembering how I had untied her hair and watched it cascade over her bare back, and the sudden shock of her taking me in her mouth unexpectedly. I let the images flood my mind as I ate the cake and drank the coffee and excluded everything but the pleasant sensations of the moment.
Chapter 40
FREYA
MY PLAN WASN’T ideal by any standard. However, packing up my apartment and moving my stuff back to my parents’ house, which was constantly buzzing with activity, was a surefire way to make a week fly by with as little time to think about things as possible. My entire life revolved around Dynasty Games, and I could see that despite the looks my parents and Beatrix gave one another when they thought I wasn’t looking, my work was paying off.
We had sat down together, played Dad’s old games, and talked about how we could update the various concepts – chance, strategy, building, exploration – to make them work as on-screen games. They were mostly educational, which gave us a whole new direction to go in. Beatrix had researched the market for kids’ educational games, and we had come up with three solid ideas to get us started. We usually worked on one new development at a time, but Beatrix argued that we needed to hit the market hard with a new approach. I worked on the graphics late into the night, and Drew gave up his free time willingly to help. The business was still flailing, but at least we didn’t feel so helpless any longer.
We spent all day every day working, and then in the bright evenings we would all be together in the garden, sometimes thrashing out problems we had encountered and other times sitting in tired silence. It was in the garden that Mom had sat down with me to talk about Beatrix.