by Lulu Pratt
“It looks cut and dry, Keegan,” he said. “I can’t come at it from any other angle unless you give me some information.”
“There’s no information to give. Sure, I was being sneaky with money, but that was my money, from selling off some of my shares. I never touched company money!”
“So, who did?” he asked again.
“It has to have been someone else at the company. Why hasn’t Sean been investigated?” I demanded, losing my patience now.
“He is the one who discovered it,” the lawyer pointed out patiently.
“So?” I asked. “I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“Things are moving forward slowly; this is going to be a long game. Let’s see what happens.”
I thanked him and hung up. Things hadn’t been moving slow here. Things have been moving fast, even by my most impulsive standard, at the farmstead. I owned half of the place now, and Chris had relaxed. The weight of having hundreds of acres of land, tumbling-down barns, and heavy taxes had all been lifted from him. The more we discussed our plans to restore the place and focus on breeding and training horses rather than just making ends meet, the more he changed. He spoke more now, told me about his past and shared his ideas. Our plan had always been for him to keep living in the farmhouse while I worked at Clover House, and then by the time I hit thirty-five, he would be hitting retirement age. He would own one of the smaller houses on the land and retire there, and then I would use the trust fund to buy the rest of the place.
I didn’t expect to ever come into my trust fund now, and selling my shares to Mick had only covered the first part of the plan, and so the plan had had to change. Chris was still glad for the investment, and it was the only deal he was going to get. And it looked like I would be around more, and that saved the money we would have spent on getting someone in to work there. For now, we got on fine living in the farmhouse like some kind of odd couple. Everything had been written into a contract, the investments we were committed to, all of it down to the last detail had been signed off. In time, I would renovate one of the smaller houses and move out to it. I tried to push the loss of the family business out of my mind, but it was always there, and I felt the missed opportunity, the lost chances, keenly.
I reminded myself that my father would never have taken my ideas seriously, and even if he had, Sean would have been there to put a stop to it before I could get started. I was never going to be free while I was there. But now I was living the life I had thought I would spend the next seven years looking forward to. Sure, I didn’t have the same financial security that I had thought I would have. I was going to have to work harder than ever before to make it happen. But I wasn’t afraid of hard work. Working with horses was all I had ever really wanted to do. They had tried to put the idea out of my head with all kinds of other things, the education, the hobbies, the business… But whenever I thought of being happy, picturing my future, everything else was just a distraction or a money-making scheme to allow me to work with horses. Well, I was tired of that. I didn’t want to be like my father, working his whole life just so that he could retire and wonder who the fuck he was while dawdling around a golf course.
Chris had taken the opportunity to do some traveling now he had some money in the bank, and so I had found myself suddenly in charge.
“Make sure Misty doesn’t get into the low field; she can jump and the fence is down on the east side. Rusty needs a good rub down; I meant to do it, but I didn’t get time, and the delivery should be here tomorrow. If it isn’t, you’ll have to call and give them hell. The vet should be calling you back about Warrior’s ear, but tell him I reckon it’s cleared up, and keep a close eye on it for any changes…” he said, before he left, a repeat of the same list he had given me that morning.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Joe will be around – he knows what needs done.”
“He will,” nodded Chris, then laughed. “Mind he does what you say, though. He thinks you’re here for some sort of hobby and you’ll get bored soon enough.”
“And what do you think?” I laughed, hiding the fact that I was slightly annoyed. But Joe had been working for Chris a long time, and he was entitled to his opinion.
“I told him your hands are soft but you got Lady into a harness two minutes after meeting her, and she’s the stubbornest mare we ever had on the farm, so I reckon you’ll do okay.” He nodded and jumped into his beat-up old Chevy, heading down the lumpy lane to the main road.
In truth, I was a bit worried about how I might cope. He was right; I had a knack for horses. I had learned from my grandfather and spent my early teenage summers working for him on his farm and traveling with him to other horse breeders across the country. Until I had been distracted by the lure of friends and music and girls back in the city, horses had been my life. It was time to reconnect with that side of myself.
I made my way out across the yard. It was a big house and a big farm, and it rolled right down to the coast. I had taken one of the horses right down to the sea one morning, and he had pranced and splashed in the cold water. It was the closest I had felt to being really alive since I had been with Freya in Dublin. And there she was again, never far from my mind. When I saw the sun rise over the sea, I thought of how she would love it, and when I fell into bed exhausted from the day’s work, I craved her body.
No amount of work, either in planning the changes that needed to happen in the place or in managing the day-to-day sweaty work of caring for the place and its animals, seemed to be enough to get her out of my mind.
Chapter 42
FREYA
I WASN’T FAMILIAR with the traditional girls’ night in, but I was pretty sure that this wasn’t it. Taylor and I sat on Beatrix’s bed – because she insisted on being involved even though she was still on strict bedrest – and we were all poring over paperwork. Every now and then one of us would show the others some item on a spreadsheet or line in a report and we would murmur over it and then add it to the growing pile on the nightstand. It was almost cozy. Stan came and went with drinks and cookies, checking each time that Beatrix wasn’t getting overtired until she told him that if he didn’t stop asking her, she would get up and go back to work in the morning. Taylor gave this threat an approving look, and I wondered how it had never occurred to me just how much these two would get along. When the final piece of paper was added to the stash, Taylor stood up and stretched.
“Okay, girl, what’s the plan? This is the running-to-the-airport scene, yeah?”
“The what?” I asked. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“The running-to-the-airport scene,” Beatrix repeated, like it was obvious.
“What airport?” I frowned at them.
They sighed and looked at one another like I was a naughty child.
“You know. When you realize your man isn’t a total asshole after all, and you run to the airport to stop him catching his plane!” Beatrix explained.
“Except in this case, you gotta take the evidence,” Taylor gestured at the paperwork. “And go prove that your man isn’t a total bastard or Dark Lord.”
“And also, he isn’t my man, and he may well still be a total bastard,” I added, confused.
“Granted, it’s not your typical rom-com, but it is what it is, so can you puh-lease get off your ass and get moving? I just booked an Uber and it is literally two blocks away,” Taylor announced.
“But I…”
“No buts!” Beatrix said. She smiled at Taylor and me as we left. I hadn’t told her about Drew. She didn’t need the stress. But together we had printed off every last item from my Clover House USB key and searched it for anything dodgy. And found nothing.
It had been Taylor’s plan to go see Keegan’s dad rather than go to the cops. Her argument was that if I could avoid having to admit to the authorities that I had actually stolen files then that would be preferable, but I wasn’t sure which option made me more nervous. It was her day off, but she had checked with Frank, and
Mr. Callahan was in Keegan’s office all day, so the plan was simply to walk in there and confront him. I was glad she felt so confident, but I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm.
I don’t know how I made it to the office; my legs were like jelly and my mind raced to the point where I couldn’t even plan what to say. I knocked on the door, and his face when I entered the room was the picture of shocked outrage.
“What is this?” he asked. “What are you, of all people, doing here?”
“I… I want… I need to talk to you,” I stammered, cursing my nerves.
“There is nothing you could say that I would want to hear. How dare you come in here like you own the place? Leave, or I will call security.” His face was set like stone, but his eyes were flashing with anger.
I turned to go, and then turned back. He stared at me open-mouthed, and lifted the phone from the desk, his finger hovering over the button to reception.
“Look, I know you don’t want me here, and I understand that. You can call security if you need to. But I’m going to say what I came here to say.” I spoke fast, so that if he did decide to call security, he would at least have to listen to me. “I did what I did to protect the family business that my father and mother built for us. Just like you are doing. But I’m here now because I believe Keegan is innocent, and you owe it to him to at least hear me out and look at these papers.”
He leaned back on the corner of his desk with his arms folded and made no move to take the papers that I held out to him.
“Please,” I said. “I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t care about your son, and if you can’t see that, then I will take this to the police.”
“Why bring it here at all?” he asked. “Why not go straight to the police?”
“Because I shouldn’t have these,” I said, losing my composure for a second, trying to steady my bottom lip which was threatening to wobble. “But I am trying to do the right thing.”
“What is this?” he asked, taking the bundle from me, and flicking through the pages roughly.
“Financial documents, reports, things I took when I was backing up company files that I shouldn’t even have had access to. And you can report that if you’d like. But before you do, read them. If there are financial irregularities to prove Keegan guilty, they aren’t in these files. I have a digital copy with the dates of retrieval, too,” I said, holding up the USB key. Beatrix had made another copy, warning me that we couldn’t be too careful.
The significance of what he held in his hands dawned on him then, and he sat down at Keegan’s desk and started to flick through them.
“I don’t know that this will help,” I said, moving beside him. “But if the files incriminating him have been doctored in some way, this will prove it.”
“But why? Who would doctor financial files to set him up?” he exclaimed, and I thought he was going to get angry again. “Did you…”
“Not me,” I said, firmly. “But I would guess it’s the same person who paid for inside information from Dynasty Games. And he called himself Keegan Callahan, but I can assure you it wasn’t him.”
Mr. Callahan turned slightly pale, and looked back at the paperwork. “This is a lot to look over,” he said.
“I will leave it with you,” I said.
He looked up at me. “This was a brave thing you just did, and I appreciate that. I hope my son knows how lucky he is to have someone willing to fight this hard for him, whether any of this proves to be useful or not.”
“Will you tell me where he is?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered, and then softened slightly. “But he hasn’t left the state.”
I nodded. “Good.”
“I tried,” he said, helplessly, all fierceness gone. “I tried to get him to come back.”
Chapter 43
KEEGAN
FOR WEEKS I HAD been jumping every time the phone rang. I told myself it was because at any moment I could expect a call from the police asking me to come back in for questioning, or a call from my lawyer to update me on what I should expect. But whenever the phone went, my first thought wasn’t the cops or the lawyers, or even my ever-disappointed parents. My first thought was always Freya. And it made me so angry with myself. I felt like a sucker for punishment. So when the phone rang on a dull Tuesday morning while I was standing in the middle of a field trying to convince a pregnant mare to let me get near her, and I saw her name on the screen, I considered not answering at all. When I did pick it up, I couldn’t bring myself to even speak to her.
“Keegan?” she said, and I closed my eyes at the sound of her voice.
“Yes,” was all I could get out.
“I know you don’t want to hear this. But hear me out. I need to see you.” She sounded urgent; panicking, even.
Something was wrong, and try as I might, I couldn’t hang up. “What’s wrong?”
“Where are you?” she asked.
I looked around me at the open countryside and the surprising amount of horseshit I had just walked through. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“I would, Keegan, I would,” she sounded strange. “Tell me you didn’t do any of the things they are accusing you of, and I will believe you.”
“I shouldn’t have to,” I said, stubbornly.
“Why? Because I know you so well? Because I’m not supposed to question anything you say?” she said, and I had to admit she was right.
“Why are you calling me? I thought we had done this already,” I sighed.
“Because I have just handed your father a stack of paperwork that may well get you out of the shit, and may well land me in it. So you can tell me where the fuck you are, so that I can see you before they come and fucking arrest me too!” She was growling at me furiously; I had never heard her so worked up.
“You did what?” I said in disbelief.
“You heard me,” she seethed. “Now tell me where you are or get back here, because I am done with this!”
“Catch a train from North Station on the Newburyport/Rockport Line. I will send you a place and time to get off. I will pick you up,” I said, half afraid to antagonize her any further.
“Thank you,” she said, and there was a pause. “I am leaving right now.”
I looked up the train details and sent them through to her, making my way back to the house to get rid of the smell of horse manure before I picked her up. However, even the force of Freya’s rage could not alter the train schedule, and it was almost dark when I picked her up. She barely said a word as I handed her a helmet belonging to Chris, but she clambered onto the bike behind me. We hadn’t far to go, and she held onto the handle behind her rather than hold me. I felt strangely hurt by this.
When we got back to the house, she looked around nervously.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Well, you can’t see much now, but it’s a farmhouse. A ranch, I suppose. It’s a horse farm.”
“Who owns it?”
“Well, half of it is mine, and in time, all of it will be.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Because…” I didn’t really know how to answer this. Because it was my dream, and I was afraid that telling someone made it real, and making it real meant that it wouldn’t happen? “Because I had to sell some shares in Clover House to buy it, and that’s not going to make me popular.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” she asked, boldly.
“They were mine to sell. I could still work for Clover House, and I could still meet my trust fund obligations, if that’s what you are asking. None of that matters now, but thank you for your continued interest in my financial affairs.”
“Is that what you think?” she said as we entered the kitchen and hung up the helmets. “That I give a shit about how rich you are?”
“I didn’t say that,” I answered. “But it does seem to keep cropping up…” I gestured to the couch for h
er to sit as I lit the cast iron stove. It wasn’t a cold night, but I needed something to do with my hands.
“You are being investigated for embezzlement; the subject of money is likely to come up a lot,” she replied, sitting down on the couch, and curling her legs under her the way I had seen her do so many times now. The familiarity of the movement would have made me smile, but the distance between us, the coldness, made it impossible.
“I didn’t know you were part of the investigative team,” I replied, and privately enjoyed the annoyance on her face. The fire was lit now, and I stood awkwardly in front of it.
“Will you sit down?” she asked, and I sat beside her on the edge of the couch, my head in my hands.
“Freya,” I said, suddenly tired. “I can’t do this. I don’t know why you are here, or what you meant about seeing my father, or how you are in trouble, or what I can do about it…”
She turned to me and took my hands so that I had to look at her. Her eyes were ringed with dark shadows, made deeper by the lamplight and the flickering of the fire in the stove.
“Listen to me,” she pleaded. “Please, just listen to me.”
And then she had started at the beginning and told me about why she had come to work at Clover House, what her family stood to lose. And then she told me things I didn’t know. I had sworn and stood up to pace the room when she told me that this guy Drew had thought he was talking to me. Thought that it was me who was scamming him, and scamming Clover House at the same time. I knew immediately it was Sean. I think I had always known it was him, but I didn’t want to believe my own brother would frame me. Then she told me that she had been to see my father that same day. At some stage in the story, she had begun to sob, and I stood helplessly watching her, my mind reeling.
“So, I know what I did was wrong, but the only thing I can truthfully tell you I am sorry for is not telling you sooner. I can’t say I’m sorry for lying to get the job,” she sobbed. “Because if I hadn’t been there to steal the files, there would be no evidence to prove you innocent now. And most of all, I can’t regret meeting you.”