Jasmine Cresswell - Payback

“I’ve talked to my brother about the mortgage several times and he insists there was no three-million-dollar infusion of cash into Raven Enterprises. Besides, he says the business was in great shape, although the legal difficulties since Ron’s disappearance have created problems for Paul going forward, which is why he hasn’t been able to give me any cash from the business while we’re waiting for the wills to be probated. The lawyers are controlling everything. However, according to Paul, at the time Ron disappeared there would have been no reason at all for your father to seek extra business capital.”

“So how does Uncle Paul explain the mortgage on your home?”

“Well, he doesn’t, of course. But you know my brother. He’s a Southern gentleman of the old school and he’s secretly convinced I’ll get brain fever and go into a decline if he discusses money and finance with me. Paul insists the penthouse was always mortgaged and Ron simply refinanced at a better rate. He claims the documents I found weren’t a new mortgage. They were refinancing papers that just happened to be signed a couple of months before your father disappeared.”

“If Uncle Paul says there was no three-million-dollar payment into Raven Enterprises, then he must be right,” Kate said. “He was Dad’s business partner, after all. But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong about the mortgage on the penthouse. It just suggests Dad invested the three million elsewhere.”

She needed to have a come-to-Jesus talk with her uncle, Kate reflected. Paul had been wise to protect his sister from unnecessary worries about finances in the immediate turmoil following Ron’s disappearance and the discovery of his bigamy. However, six months had passed and it wasn’t sensible for Paul to continue shielding her mother from every harsh reality. God knew, with all the details of their private lives that had been blazoned across the nation’s TV screens, it was almost comic for her uncle to adhere to the quaint, 1950s custom of protecting the womenfolk from a clear understanding of their own financial situation.

“You’re right,” Avery said. “Ron must have invested the money elsewhere, because I’m sure there was no mortgage on the penthouse until very recently. But arguing with your uncle is so exhausting I just gave up.” She looked chagrined by the admission, as well as the implicit criticism of her elder brother, mild as it was. “I’d have to search through boxes and boxes of papers to confirm my belief, and there’s always seemed so many other, more useful ways to employ my time….”

“You’re right. There were. There’s no reason to sound guilty, Mom. Dad’s financial affairs are one giant mess. Trying to pick apart one tiny thread of the muddle makes no sense. Between us and the family in Wyoming, we have what seems like a thousand lawyers and accountants already poking around in Dad’s finances. You’re smart to leave them to it and get on with your life.”

“Maybe, except that once I’d talked with Luke this morning, it began to seem as if I might have been right to suspect the mortgage on the penthouse was significant.”

“I’m not following, Mom. Why does it matter? Except that you’re potentially three million dollars worse off, of course. But even if the penthouse had been free of all mortgages, wouldn’t the proceeds from the sale have gone into probate, anyway?”

“I expect so, since nobody can decide which of Ron’s wills is valid, if any. But if your father isn’t dead…if he’s alive…doesn’t it strike you that there might be a connection between the sudden three-million-dollar mortgage on our penthouse and his disappearance?”

The meaning of Avery’s comment hit Kate with the force of a physical blow. “Are you suggesting…” She needed to swallow before she could finish her question. “Are you suggesting that Dad mortgaged the penthouse so that he would have money to finance his disappearance?”

“Well, it certainly seems a possibility, wouldn’t you say? I’ve…wondered about that over the past few months.”

“If he’s alive, I guess it’s a possibility.” Kate’s mouth felt dry and her stomach tightened in a sickly knot. “I just don’t see any reason to believe he’s alive.”

“Luke saw him. Isn’t that a reason?”

“Luke thinks he saw him,” Kate corrected.

Avery’s scrubbing intensified as if she wanted to erase her own suspicions. She’d scrubbed so hard the shelves were beginning to show evidence of having once been white. “There’s another thing about the money. Do you remember that your father also took out a three-million-dollar loan with Adam’s bank, using Ellie’s ranch in Wyoming as collateral?”

“Yes, I knew about that.” Kate nodded. “It was the need to find out what had happened to the missing money that brought Adam and Megan together in the first place, and then sent them chasing off to Mexico in pursuit of the missing millions. Adam and I have talked quite a bit about the way Dad double-crossed him, of course.”

The pursuit of the money, and the complicated reasons behind its disappearance, had interested Kate less than the fact that her mother’s youngest brother had ended up marrying Megan Raven. Adam was her second favorite relative in the world after her mother and she’d wondered many times in the past few weeks how her father would react to the news that the daughter of his first wife had married the younger brother of his bigamous second wife. Kate saw a definite hint of ironic retribution tucked away in the fact of Adam and Megan’s marriage.

Her mother turned around, her scrubbing brush dripping soapsuds. She spoke with careful lack of inflection. “Doesn’t it strike you as oddly symmetrical that both Ron’s so-called wives ended up three million dollars poorer than they might have expected? And in both cases because of loans that Ron took out using our homes as collateral?”

Kate felt a tiny shiver run down her spine. “Mom, you’re seeing patterns that don’t exist.”

“The pattern exists,” Avery said tartly, dumping her scrubbing brush into the pail of hot water with a decisive splash. “The only question for discussion is whether the pattern is a coincidence or deliberately planned.”

Kate’s heart started to thump uncomfortably fast. “The loan on the ranch in Wyoming was taken out a couple of years before Dad disappeared, not a couple of months.”

“I’m well aware of that. It makes you wonder how long your father was planning his disappearance, doesn’t it?”

Her mother’s sarcasm was unprecedented. Kate pressed her hands against her stomach and drew in a long, deep breath. “Mom, let’s get back to the earlier question. The important one. Forget the mortgages on the penthouse and the Wyoming ranch for a moment. Are you telling me that you think Luke might be right? That Dad really was eating dinner in a Washington, D.C., restaurant, and Luke saw him?”

Avery used a clean rag to mop up the soapy water pooled on the shelves. “All I can say is that Luke definitely believes he saw Ron. And Luke always struck me as a man with both feet planted firmly in the real world. You know him better than I do, of course. Does he strike you as a man given to fantasizing about dead people?”

“No.” It was a measure of her turmoil that Kate didn’t even think something rude about Luke, much less say it out loud. “If Luke is right, shouldn’t somebody notify the police about what he saw?”

“Luke tried calling the police in Miami and here in Chicago, too. That was before he contacted me. He said they had no interest in taking his report.”

Kate felt a surge of relief. “Well, Mom, doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Yes,” Avery said, the bite of uncharacteristic sarcasm still in her voice. “It tells me that police departments tend to be overworked and that since they have a suspect in Ron’s death who is a convicted felon, they have no interest whatsoever in spending a lot of time revising their theory of the case.”