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Faith nodded. “It’s taken them awhile to dig into the recipient. They kept looking for other big purchases but nothing came up, and it was a Swiss account, so it took some … effort to track down the recipient.”.
“Anyone we know?” Zach asked. Mina’s shoulders were still like steel under his arm and he tightened his grip on her but kept his eyes on Faith who didn’t look happy.
Faith shook her head. “The account the money went to was held in the name of a woman named Ree Vacek. She lives in some town in Illinois?—”
“Illinois?” Mina said, eyes widening. “But then why was the paperwork in Jersey?” She stopped, then shook her head. “Never mind. It was Dad. It doesn’t have to make sense.” She made a little “go on” gesture.
“Well, this town is where the bank account that received the money was opened apparently. But I guess that doesn’t mean she still lives there. Or ever lived there, maybe. The name doesn’t ring any bells with me and it doesn’t show up in any of the estate records anywhere. I told them to go ahead and see if they can track her down,” Faith said. “Maybe it’ll turn out to be a donation or something.” She didn’t sound like she believed that was likely.
Zach’s stomach sank. Fuck. The payment had gone to a woman. It was a scenario they’d discussed when they’d first found out about the money. But part of him had hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be that. Call him cynical, but there was one very obvious reason why Grey would be making a payment that big to a woman none of them had heard of. A child. Or the claim of one. But that last twelve months, he’d been starting to go downhill fast. Sure he’d made a few trips off-island, insistent on being an independent old bastard to the end, and yes, Grey had gotten Zoe and Lou and Emmy pregnant without any planning, but it seemed unlikely he’d been off knocking up random women when he’d been dying of liver cancer. But hell, it did seem like the most likely reason.
Unless this Ree Vacek, whoever she was, had something over him.
But Grey had never really given a shit about his reputation. And Zach couldn’t see his dad giving into that sort of thing when he knew he only had a year or two left. And, if he was honest with himself, somewhere in the back of his mind, there had always been a part of him that had wondered if one day another Harper kid might turn up. A legacy of his father’s charm and libido, that maybe even Grey himself might never have known about.
So maybe he was jumping to conclusions and, like Faith said, there were other perfectly legitimate reasons why Grey might have given someone half a million dollars.
“Do they think they can find her?” he asked as Mina slipped out from under his arm and walked a few steps away before turning and coming back, positioning herself, arms folded, beside him again.
Damn. Mina was the one who didn’t have experience of this. She was the youngest. Sure, Grey had divorced Emmy in the end, but he’d never replaced her with anyone long term. And there hadn’t been another kid to really hit the point home that Grey had screwed up again when Mina’s mom had left. Not like Faith had been for Zach or Mina had been for Faith. Though he and Faith had been younger. Back then, he’d been excited at the thought of another sibling. And thankful that Lou had appeared to fill the mom-sized gap in his life Zoe had left behind her.
Faith nodded. “It’s an unusual name, it shouldn’t be that hard.”
“Hell,” he said. “Not to be the first to mention the elephant in the room, but do we want to talk about this?”
“That depends what you mean by ‘this,’” Mina said, looking unhappy. Zach put his arm around her again.
“What we talked about before,” Faith said.
“You really think Dad had another kid?” Mina asked, looking at him for confirmation.
Interesting. He would’ve expected Faith to be the first one to say it out loud, not Mina.
Zach squeezed Mina a little tighter. “I don’t know, kiddo. It’s not like Dad to ignore a child. I mean, he never bailed on any of us.”
“That’s assuming he knew about it,” Faith said. “But I agree, he always took care of things in that department. And he’d gotten pretty careful, after Mina.” She shot an apologetic look at her little sister. “I always got the impression he thought three not-so-planned kids was enough. Or maybe that he just didn’t want a fourth marriage. He told me once that he’d gotten the snip to be safe, but I have no idea if he was serious or not. And knowing how sneaky he could be, I doubt there’s anyway of finding out whether he did.”
She was probably right. And really, the truth about whether or not Grey had been shooting blanks later in life was not something he needed to know.
“Did the lawyers give you a timeframe?”
Faith shook her head. “Not too long—weeks, maybe a bit longer—but they couldn’t be exact.”
Which meant they were stuck with not knowing for now and there was nothing that any of them could do about it. A burst of noise came from the house, as though someone had cranked up the music a notch or two.
Party. Leah. Right. Focus on the now. Don’t borrow trouble. The future would take care of itself. “Okay. Then I think the best plan is to wait and see what the lawyers come up with. We can drive ourselves crazy speculating or we can just forget about it until we need to actually do something.” He nodded back toward the house. “There’s a party waiting for us back there, not to mention Leah’s probably wondering where the hell we are. I vote for booze and cake and letting the lawyers do their thing.”
Neither sister looked convinced. But then Faith nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. We’ll just drive ourselves crazy if we worry about it. Booze and cake sounds good to me.” She smiled at Mina. “You can have cake and Will. He’s a good distraction.”
Her voice was overly cheerful. But he was pretty sure he’d sounded the same. But hell. Fake it until you make it, or whatever that shit was. If he had to pretend to be okay with this for the moment so that Faith and Mina could be okay with it, then he would. And, if he actually got something decent to drink and Leah back by his side, he might even be okay with it for real.
Leah was sipping a margarita and listening to Stella and Ivy wax lyrical about the latest superhero movie when she saw Zach, Faith, and Mina come back into the room together. The three of them looked somewhat strained. And they were coming from the front of the house, not the deck or out back where the party had spilled out in both directions.
Where had they been? She hadn’t noticed them leaving. Of course, she’d been somewhat distracted trying to say hello to everyone and get her head around the fact that Zach had organized a party for her.
She knew it was him. Even though Faith had been the one who’d taken charge when they’d arrived, there was no way Faith would have set this whole thing up without warning her.
So, it had to be Zach.
