I have to get out of here, even if it’s Rixton wherever, like Derek suggested.
“Leave,” I say through a tightened jaw. “And I’d better not ever catch you in here again.”
Chapter 7
Derek
Leaning over Gladys’s desk on Wednesday, I slip her a circular from last night’s paper.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“Horton Satellite Internet,” I say. “I need you to call and request an emergency installation at Belcourt Manor.”
“Can I do that?” She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her bumpy nose and reads the fine print.
“As conservator of Serena Randall’s estate, I’m authorizing you to do it it.”
She picks up her phone, cradling the receiver on her shoulder, and punches in the eight hundred number on the paper.
Hoisting up my briefcase, I slip past my dad’s office, ducking in and saying hello. He’s mixing his coffee, as he usually does at this hour. I wait until he’s finished. He has to get a precise ratio of sugar to cream to coffee, and I’ve watched him dump out far too many perfectly good cups because something was a little off.
“Son. Morning,” he says, taking a sip from his mug and nodding when the taste is to his liking. “Have a good weekend?”
“I did,” I say. “I met with Serena Randall on Saturday.”
He scrunches his face. “On a Saturday? Why would you do that?”
“She wasn’t able to meet for long on Friday,” I say. “And I did a little research on the case Friday night. I had some more questions. Wanted to get to know her a little better.”
Dad sighs, smoothing his palm down his plaid tie as he bends to sit. The lines framing the sides of his mouth flex deep as he stares ahead. I’ve seen this look before. He’s thinking too hard about something.
“This is the financial conservator assignment, correct?” he asks.
“Right.”
“You don’t need to research anything, Derek. You simply establish a budget and report the incoming and outgoing funds to the courts as scheduled. You’re making more work out of this than necessary.”
I shut his door and take the seat across from him. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
His head tilts to one side, and he skims his thumb along his thick, dark mustache. I used to think it made him look intimidating. Now it just reminds me of Tom Selleck in his prime.
“At the surface, this is a simple conservator case,” I say. “Scratch that surface and look again? It’s an estate case. The stepmother is trying to prove the daughter is mentally unsound so she can get the father to change the will. She’s paying people to make false statements. Even the car accident was a hoax.”
Dad leans forward, his finger in the air. “Wait a minute. You have proof of this?”
“Working on it.”
He massages his middle finger against his temple, exhaling with a groan. “The Randalls are a very prominent, powerful family. They have a lot of money and a lot of resources. You can’t go muddying up their names because you think you caught a whiff of fraud. You need to have solid evidence before you so much as make a single pointed accusation, or your name will be mud. Our name.”
“One of the psychiatric reports reference Serena attempting to end her life by driving her car off a bridge in Walworth Township,” I say. “The bridge was six feet off the ground, and the creek below it was only two feet deep. If someone were to try and end their life, why would they do it there?”
“Because they weren’t of sound mind at the time.” His arms fold across his chest, and his head tilts in the opposite direction.
I ignore him. He hasn’t met her yet. He can see for himself the kind of mental state she’s in, and that will answer his question.
“The doctor’s report stated she stayed in a private psychiatric care center in upstate New York after the accident,” I say. “Serena claims she’s never left Belcourt. She claimed she was evaluated by a doctor, treated for a mild concussion, and monitored at home by a nurse during the week that followed.”
“Find me that nurse. Find someone to corroborate her story.”
“Easy enough, right?” I ask. “Wrong. We suspect these people may be on her stepmother’s payroll. She’s buying their false statements. Coming clean would have major consequences for everyone involved. It won’t be easy.”
Dad leans forward, resting his elbows against the polished glass top of his walnut desk. “You’re going to be eyeballs deep in your own shit if you keep this up.”
I snivel. “You have no faith.”
“I think you’re a smart man doing a foolish thing.”
“What happened to doing the right thing?” I stare at the old man before me, his shoulders weighted down from years of bearing everyone else’s burdens. “What happened to justice?”
He leans back, his chair creaking and popping as he spins to face the picture window to his side.
“I ask myself that every day.” He shakes his head, and for the second time in my life, I find the magic around my father’s façade to be more illusion than anything else. “Sometimes, you do what’s best for your career, and sometimes, that isn’t always what’s best for your clients.”
His words are a punch to my gut, and I find myself speechless for a moment.
“So what are you saying?”