Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
My mother stiffened. “I do not want your illegal money. That isn’t the fix to everything,” she replied as if he’d slapped her.
He leaned back and relaxed as he studied her. “No money can’t fix everything, but added with a healthy dose of revenge, it sure can change the course.”
She shook her head. “There is no revenge.”
The small tug at the corner of Thatcher’s lips intrigued me. What was he thinking? I should have asked him before letting him in here.
“Your husband has an offshore bank account with over three million dollars in it—three point five, to be exact,” he said, then glanced back at me. “Are you okay with her hearing this?” he asked, and I knew he was referring to Esther.
I stood there trying to determine how he knew this and how my father would have that kind of money in an account. That was more than the money he’d gotten for getting Thatcher off from a murder charge. And a good deal of that money had been used. I wasn’t sure if anyone should hear this. I hesitated, but seeing as Esther had been here for my mom when I hadn’t, she was just as much family as I was.
I nodded.
He turned back to my mother.
“There is no way that Clark has that much money,” she replied, almost amused. “Offshore account. Ha! He hardly knows how to work the online banking app for our checking account.”
Thatcher took out his phone and tapped some things on it before replying. “Seems he’s taken out fifty grand since Sunday, but he won’t get more. I just froze it.”
My mother’s face faltered, unsure what to believe.
“Like I was saying. Your husband has money that he came by illegally. You see, it started when he testified in witnessing my killing Beauden Redd as being self-defense. The church was given three million dollars for that. A year later, the family needed someone trustworthy, whom no one would expect, a minister to take a deadly drug into the prison and deliver it to a prisoner who we needed to die. Clark was given half a million for that job once the inmate was declared dead by overdose,” Thatcher glanced at me before continuing. “There were other small jobs the next few years. Anything from sneaking something past the security to inmates to visiting someone in the hospital who hadn’t been meant to survive and adding a small dose to their IV. Granted, these were all men who deserved to die. They were dangerous, had done terrible things, and gotten away with it. Clark looked at it as vigilante work. Nine years ago,” he paused, glancing at me before continuing. “I stopped my father from contacting Clark again. All his connections with the family were ceased.”
Nine years ago. He’d come to see me in the church parking lot.
Thatcher paused and tilted his head slightly, waiting for my mother to say something. The stunned look on her face said enough. She was in shock. Perhaps I would be, too, if I hadn’t already known about the testimony that kept Thatcher from prison.
The fact Thatcher had never told me the rest, that once again he had held something from me, it took the scab that had recently formed and ripped it right off.
“I personally kept tabs on his account. Checked to see how he spent it and when he used any. It was rare that he did and never much. Until five years ago. He started taking out three thousand a month. Curious, I did some digging and found out that it was to pay for an apartment in Atlanta. My curiosity may have been curbed, but seeing as anything connected to Capri concerned me, I tracked him.”
I shook my head. He had known about this affair too. My hands clenched at my sides as I fought through my own turmoil.
“NO!” Esther shouted, causing me to jump.
I turned to look back at her to find she had gone completely white. Panic flared in her eyes as they swung from me to Thatcher and then to my mom. Sure, this was upsetting, but Esther was on another level.
“What?” Thatcher drawled. “It wasn’t like you were the first.”
Esther took a step back, shaking her head.
“Take one more step, and I’ll stop you,” Thatcher’s tone, although calm, was threatening.
I stared at her, trying to understand what was happening. Why was she acting like this?
“You can’t be saying,” my mother started.
“That Esther was meeting your husband at that apartment nights when he was meant to be doing hospital and jail visits? Yes. That is what I mean. She wasn’t the first young girl he’d fucked in the church, but she was the first one too afraid to do it in town. She was his daughter’s best friend, after all. Either it was the guilt that stopped her from going after two months or the fact he had started taking another girl to their apartment with him. Maelee had been next. Slowly, she became the only one unless another girl joined them.”