by Shayla Black
“Oh, no. No. She’s way closer to your age than mine. She’s ambitious, on the quiet side, very direct. I trust her. At least let me introduce you next time you’re home…”
If I keep refusing, he’ll only keep wheedling. Like his entire proposition that I move back to LA and assume his business, it’s better to defer than refuse. For all I know, he may change his mind again tomorrow.
“I’ll think about it.”
He pastes on a big smile and whips out his phone, then presses and swipes until he finds his photos. “We took this last month when we got together for our quarterly meeting. She even brought me a bottle of my favorite whiskey for my birthday. I asked, and she’s single…”
To humor him, I lean in to look at the display. The smiling blonde looks chic and, I admit, stunning in a fitted, feminine gray sheath. Her rosy-pale coloring looks almost icy in the photo, but her eyes are a warm mossy green.
If I met her in a bar, I’d definitely try my luck. And I’d probably keep trying until she said yes. She’s hot.
“Well, I can’t fault your taste in women.”
He laughs heartily, then darkens his phone. Before he can pocket it, the device rings. Thank goodness for WiFi-supported calling. Out here, the cell service is shit.
Dad glances at the display. “It’s Brenda. One minute.”
His secretary. Probably work. I take that as my cue to head to the kitchen for another beer. When I turn back, my dad is rubbing at that spot just below his shoulder again. Did he pull a muscle?
“Another whiskey?” I ask just before he answers the call.
“Hello?” He presses the phone to his ear and shakes his head.
As I head out of the room, I zone out from their conversation and flip on the kitchen radio. Garth Brooks and George Jones are singing a familiar, up-tempo song about a beer run. Grinning, I grab another brew from the fridge, pop off the cap, and take a swallow.
My dad has visibly aged recently, and I think it’s because his business runs him. It’s high demand. I guess that makes sense for insurance. But being a desk jockey would make me insane. I like spending time outdoors too much and I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. Not much call for that in his line of work. I definitely don’t want to talk all day about premiums and car accidents.
As I toss the little metal disc in the nearby trash can, my father’s voice booms. I hear the shock. It’s a tone I’ve only heard once—after my mother’s doctors told my parents her breast cancer was terminal. This blow is every bit as gut-deep and stunned.
I flip off the radio and go running, only to find my dad sheet-white and blinking as he clutches the phone. “Everything?”
“What?” I ask.
He waves me away with a scowl and begins rubbing at the spot under his shoulder even harder. “Everything. I don’t… That’s thirty-five years of work. Of savings. Oh, shit. And he was arrested yesterday?”
What the hell is he talking about? And who? “Dad?”
He shakes his head again. “Keep making phone calls. I’ll do the same and I’ll be on a plane home tomorrow. If you find out anything else… Yes. Of course. I’m going to call Bethany right now. Thank you.”
The moment he hangs up, I’m beside him. “What happened?”
“According to Brenda, Barclay Reed, the head of my investment firm, was arrested yesterday. He’s been charged with running a giant Ponzi scheme, and every penny of his clients’ investments is gone.” He blinks as if he’s in total disbelief. “I’ve got to call Bethany. He’s her dad. Barclay, I mean. I’m not supposed to know that. She’s illegitimate. It’s hush-hush, but… She’ll tell me what’s happening. She’s honest. There must be some explanation. I saw her less than four weeks ago, and everything was fine. She showed me all the reports. My money was growing. It can’t suddenly be gone…”
He rises unsteadily to his feet. I ease him back down. He looks almost gray now. Shock, I suspect. But I’m worried. He’s sweating more and seems short of breath.
“Dad, sit here. Rest. I’ll get you packed and reserve you a plane ticket back to LA. If you get there and you need my help, I’ll fly out.”
“Thanks.” He nods almost absently. “I’ll call Bethany.”
Since I want to hear this conversation, I pretend to gather our personal effects around the room. I try to stay calm, but my thoughts are racing. My father has worked his ass off and sacrificed for decades to save a few million dollars. He’s well off, but he’s earned it. I’m mad that thieves ever steal from anyone, but for scammers to swindle the life savings of a man nearing the end of his money-earning years? Yeah, I’m furious.
“No answer.” He presses the button to end the call. “I’m going to try again.”
But three attempts later, the “beautiful, smart, and sweet” financial advisor is nowhere to be found. How convenient. If Barclay is the prime suspect and Bethany is his daughter, odds are good she was involved, too. How dare that very pretty shark in a sheath look a lonely widower in the face and prey on his trust?
My father now looks waxen. He’s rubbing at his chest in earnest.
“Dad, are you all right? Are you in pain?”
“Indigestion.” He waves me off. “Happens all the time. Maybe Bethany isn’t in the office. I’ll try her cell.”
I’d tell him to wait, but in his shoes, I would want to get to the bottom of this shit, too. Still, I’m worried.
I grab my phone to dial Gary, a buddy who happens to be the local family practitioner. Maybe he can tell me what’s going on or prescribe something for Dad’s anxiety.
“Her phone went straight to voice mail. Oh, god.” He presses a hand to his chest as if he’s trying to keep it from falling apart. “She’s never not answered me. Ever.”
His expression tells me that he’s crushed. Shattered.
“I’ve got to… I have to get…” My dad stumbles to his feet.
I pocket my phone and rush back to his side. “What?”
Now, he looks disoriented and pasty. I’m no longer concerned; I’m downright alarmed.
As I wrap my arm around my father to steady him, he grabs his chest again, eyes flaring wide as he makes an animal sound of pain and crumples to the hardwood floor.
“Dad!”
“Hurt,” he gurgles. “Ambulance.”
Holy shit. He’s having a fucking heart attack. The signs are all there.
And it will take an ambulance at least forty minutes to reach me.
Cold fear fills my veins with ice as I fall to my knees beside my dad. My fingers feel as if they’re moving in slow motion as I fumble for my phone, trying to unlock the display so I can dial.
It seems to ring forever before a woman answers. “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
I quickly fill her in and ask what I can do to help. Yes, he’s lying on the floor. Yes, he’s conscious—barely. No, he’s not breathing.
Oh, shit.
After advising me an ambulance is on the way, she asks if I have any aspirin in the house. I do, thank god.
“Dad.” I grab his hand. “Can you hear me?”
He makes a squeaking sound and grabs weakly at my hand. I try to stay calm. My head keeps telling me this can’t possibly be happening. My eyes tell me in living, horrific color it is.
“I’m going to grab an aspirin from my bathroom. Stay here. Stay with me. I’ll be right back.”
No response. I pocket my phone and flat-out run across the house, into the master bathroom, then tear into my medicine cabinet. My hands are shaking as I try to open the bottle, but the fucking child-proof cap won’t come off. Finally, I manage, spilling one tablet in my fist, then dash back down the stairs, panting, heart racing.
“Dad?”
He doesn’t respond. Son of a bitch. I have to try CPR. I haven’t practiced this since I did the lifeguard thing at the local pool when I was sixteen. But I do my best to screw my head on straight and start chest compressions and breathing.
I have no idea how long I pres
s and exhale, trying to force air into his lungs and prompt his heart to pick up its own tempo. All I know is that I’m dizzy and exhausted and wondering if I’m making any headway when the EMTs pound on my front door.
As much as I hate to, I tear myself away long enough to answer the door. I can’t acknowledge that my father still isn’t breathing. The professionals are here. They’ll get him going. He’ll be all right.
He can’t die here today.
A trio of uniformed ambulance attendants storm the house with bags and a rolling stretcher.
“Where is the victim?” a capable-looking African-American woman asks in a calm voice.
“Living room.” I point.
The other two EMTs waste no time rushing to my father’s side. I try to follow, but the woman blocks my path. “Tell me what you’ve done so far.”
I trip over my words as I try to explain, but all I care about is reaching my dad’s side. I shove my hands in my pockets. I need something to do. I can’t stand here and merely watch. I come up with the aspirin he was never conscious enough to chew and swallow.
“Do you need this?” I ask her.
She glances over her shoulder. I follow her line of vision. The other two medics have hooked my father up to some sort of heart rate monitor.
The sharp, persistent sound rattles my head and pierces my calm. He’s flatlined.
“No!” I take off to reach his side.
The woman holds me back. “Let them do their job.”
“But…”
I’m not sure what to say. I have zero medical knowledge. Logically, I’ll only be in the way, but… He can’t be dying. And if—oh, god—he is, he can’t be doing it with only strangers to comfort him. He needs family.
“Sir—”
“I have to be with him,” I blurt. “At least let me hold his hand.”
To my right, I hear one of the EMTs sigh as he rises to his feet and approaches me, regret softening his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No! I was talking to him less than an hour ago. We were making plans…”
In the back of my head, I realize I’m speaking nonsense, but I can’t process what’s just happened. I don’t know what to say.
My father can’t be dead.
“Can’t you defib him?” I’ve watched enough medical dramas on TV to know what that means.
The female shakes her head. “That’s not how it works. A defibrillator can’t jumpstart a stopped heart. They stop a heart in an irregular rhythm and try to reset it. But your father is in asystole. There’s no longer any electrical activity, so there’s no tempo to restore. We’re very sorry.”
I stand rooted. In shock.
Dad is gone.
What the hell happened? What the hell am I going to do?
Pain rips through my chest. I can’t breathe.
I have to call Bret and Bry and break their hearts. I’ll have to go to California and bury my father. I scrub a hand down my face. Oh, god. I’ll have to take care of my seventeen-year-old brother, at least until he’s no longer a minor.
I’ll have to face my life without the man whose love and counsel I’ve relied on every one of the twenty-four years of my life.
I clench my fists. Something bites into my palm. I uncurl my fingers. The aspirin.
Gritting my teeth, I’m suddenly choked by grief and anger. I toss the little disc across the room and ignore the female who offers me a sedative. Fuck that.
It seems like hours pass before they lift my dad onto a stretcher and cover his face. It’s all I can do to hold myself together. I feel so fucking brittle. And lost.
Overall, my father was in decent health. I don’t understand.
I grab the arm of the male medic who first pronounced my father dead. “How could this happen? He’s never had any history of heart trouble or disease. He was fit and still young and…”
The thirty-something guy with the goatee shrugs. “I don’t know the exact cause.” He drones on about heart fitness, medication, cholesterol, and other shit that didn’t apply to my father. “Or a shock. Did something happen today?”
It did. His investments. His life savings.
Fucking Barclay Reed and his “honest” daughter, Bethany Banks.
This is her doing, and if I have to crawl to the ends of the earth, spend every minute and every last dime, they will pay.
CHAPTER ONE
December 26 (Six months later)
Los Angeles
“You’re welcome.”
I know the self-satisfied voice on the other end of my cell phone, but I’m confused about his greeting. “Ash?”
“Yep.”
We met in the oil fields of North Dakota a few years ago. The back-breaking work and the unrelenting winters weren’t for him. After a couple of years, he succumbed to wanderlust and left, but we’ve remained tight. If I have a best friend, it’s Asher Grant.
His tone tells me he can’t wait for me to ask. “Okay, what am I thanking you for?”
“A gift. Granted it’s a day late—how was your Christmas, by the way?—but I’m calling to give you one hell of a present.”
Honestly, Christmas was rough. I did my best to keep it as jovial as possible, but it was our first season without Dad. Bret barely spoke, even to a gorgeous girl who stopped by and offered her condolences in whatever form of comfort he wanted. He’s got one semester of college left…if he finishes. I’ve counseled him—coaxed, cajoled, and threatened, too. Bret seems to be majoring in booze, not so much economics. It would have crushed Dad to see my middle brother throw away his chance to be the first in the family to graduate. The youngest, Bryson, seems hyper-determined to act as if he’s not grieving at all. He helped me decorate and cook. He ran from one party to another. Friends, music, revelry, and good times. I know Bry, now eighteen, wanted it to be like every other Christmas. It’s simply not. And it never will be again.
“It was about as expected. Yours?” I ask.
“Tough without your dad, I’m sure. Sorry, man. My Christmas was fine. Great actually. I’m in Maui.”
“Vacation?”
“Nah. I moved here about three weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to call you.”
“I guess that explains why the card I mailed to Colorado came back to me,” I say wryly.
“Yeah, the weather got too cold. You know I hate that. So when I was flipping through channels one night and I saw a show about house hunting in Hawaii, I thought…hell yeah. So here I am, tending bar.”
“Like it?”
“Love it. I mean, the gig is decent, but this place has lots of pretty beaches and pretty women… What more could I ask for? But that’s not why I called. Seriously, you should thank me now.”
I’m betting Ash will say he’s found some backdoor, barely legal way to fly me to Hawaii so I can celebrate the New Year with him. I can’t do it. I hate to leave Bret and Bry now. I’m not Dad…but at the moment I’m the closest thing they’ve got. I’m also in the middle of selling our father’s business. Negotiations paused for the last few days, but I expect them to resume shortly. My brothers and I are still talking about whether to sell the house here in LA. On the one hand, we’re not sure any of us will live in it since I’m planning to go back to North Dakota this spring, and both of my brothers are away at college now. On the other hand, we all grew up here. It’s the last vestige of our tight-knit family memories, even if it feels empty without our parents.
“Dude,” I say to Ash, “if you’ve got some scheme…”
“No. You’ll appreciate this a lot more. I assume you haven’t made any headway in the Bethany Banks department?”
“None.”
Ash knows how much I want to nail that woman to a wall because, while her father is still on the hook for the crime, she’s getting off free. She had the nerve to send a flower arrangement to my father’s funeral, but she only answered my calls to inquire about his money via email. Oh, she was incredibly sorry about everything, and she was looking
into the situation. That was months ago. Until recently, she maintained her facade in the office. More than once since Barclay Reed’s arrest, she’s stated publicly how innocent her boss is and how she’s sure he’ll be vindicated. I kept thinking she’d eventually be charged, too. As his right hand and the face of Reed Financial, how could she not be?
Then, nine days ago, the FBI declared they had arrested all suspects in the case. Bethany is still roaming free. The woman who looked my father in the face in May and told him that his fortune was growing isn’t complicit in this giant scam? I call bullshit.
After the feds’ announcement, I drove to her secure office building in San Diego to demand a face-to-face explanation. I damn well intended to hold her accountable for what happened to my father. But Reed Financial was locked up tight. A security guard told me the business had been permanently shut down the previous week. Bethany hasn’t been around since.
Furious but undeterred, I drove home. After some digging, I figured out where the woman lives. Early this morning I drove to her place, but her apartment was fucking empty. An elderly neighbor told me she left late on Christmas Eve with two bulging suitcases. She’s collecting Bethany’s mail for the foreseeable future since she has no idea when the shark will be back.
I’m livid.
“She fucking skipped town,” I tell Ash. “I’ll have to track her down again, and god knows how long that will take.”
“Zero minutes, brother. Ze-ro.”
My heart stutters. “You know where she is?”
“I’m looking at her right now.”
His assertion is so crazy I can hardly grasp it. “She’s drinking in a bar in Maui?”
“She’s working at a bar in Maui. She started waiting tables here about…two hours ago.”
My jaw drops. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m not.”
Still, what Ash is telling me…it makes no sense. “Bethany Banks is serving drinks to tourists right now? This instant?”
“Yep.”
“You’re sure it’s the same woman?”