Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
“So,” Hunter says. “Your father. We should talk a little bit more about what you know.”
I shrug helplessly. “Next to nothing. I know he owes money, but I don’t know how much. I don’t know where he goes to gamble or if he is even actively gambling. He told me he isn’t, but then we got these threats.”
“How did they come?” Hunter asks, hands over one another on his desk as he leans back, looking at me seriously. He’s really paying attention now. The attention makes me want to squirm a little.
“There was a letter taped to the door, typed up,” I say. “I should have taken it to the police to get it printed, but… I was so scared and embarrassed that our neighbors might have seen it, I just pulled it off the door and threw it right into the garbage.”
“What did it say?”
“That if he didn’t pay up soon, his leg was going to be next.”
Hunter blinks at me. “Next? What was first?”
I look down at my hands and remember that awful day. “He came home that night with a broken nose. I stayed home instead of going back to campus, waiting for him because I was worried. There was blood everywhere.”
Hunter reaches across the desk and touches my arm where it rests on the wood as if clearly seeing that I need comfort. “That must have been awful.”
“The worst part was putting two and two together,” I say. “About a month before, I’d seen him with a black eye. I asked him how he got it, and he said he tripped over something in the kitchen – he had this whole story about how he hit himself on the chair, and he was lucky he hadn’t lost an eye. When I saw the note and the broken nose, I realized. This wasn’t the first time they had warned him.”
Hunter nods, his eyes are dark. I wonder if it’s because he thinks the people doing this are despicable, or my dad is. “Tell me about his daily schedule. You mentioned he comes home late most nights.”
I nod. “He’s been doing it for years. He used to say he had errands to run, and he would come home with bags of groceries and dry cleaning and the kind of things that made it at least seem true. But then, over time, he started staying out late more and more and stopped coming home with useful things. Then we started to run out of money.”
“How old were you when this was happening?”
I look back into my memory, trying to think. “I’m not sure. Maybe thirteen.”
Hunter gives a sharp intake of breath, and I have the feeling he really is angry with my dad. I hope that isn’t going to interfere with how thoroughly he investigates the case. “He’s been gambling badly enough the last five years to affect his finances. That’s a long time. You may have to brace yourself for a very serious figure when we uncover his debts.”
I nod, trying to swallow my nervousness. I have no idea what we’re going to do. My dad doesn’t earn enough at work to keep up with the habit, and I have no income. I might have to quit college and get a job – or worse, a loan.
But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
“Let’s go and watch him now,” Hunter says, checking his watch. “We’ll get there about an hour before his lunch break, so I warn you, there’s going to be a long period of doing nothing unless he leaves early. We want to be there just in case he does. When he does leave, we’ll follow him.”
“Okay,” I nod. Hunter is starting to get up, so I do too. We weren’t even in here long enough for me to take my coat off. I should have taken it off as soon as we came in to take full advantage of the dress.
Not that he cares, I remind myself.
We walk out to the car, which is by now becoming familiar to me.
And that’s when I realize.
We’re going to be sitting right next to each other for hours, in that close proximity that turned me into a wreck last night.
“Oh, by the way,” Hunter says as he starts the car. “The advantage of getting there early, before he can see us, is that we have time to hide. Since he knows who you are, and my backseat has tinted windows, I think we should move back there when we get to his job.”
So, we won’t sit stupidly close together, but in the backseat, where there isn’t even a central console to divide us.
I’m screwed. I’m going to make an idiot of myself or be a gibbering wreck, unable to concentrate for hours. Either way, I’m screwed.
CHAPTER TWELVE