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“Leave.” Her father’s voice snapped Eric’s words in half. “Now.”
“Fine. I’ll go. Just take care of this little—”
She’d never know what contemptuous name Eric was going to call her, because Drew was suddenly there, his hand around Eric’s biceps, dragging him from the chair. He tossed Eric out of the office, slamming the door behind him.
Tasha waited for her father to deny everything. She waited for Drew to do the same.
But there were no denials.
Instead, all her father said was, “It would be better if you disappeared for a while.”
Disappeared. As though she’d done something wrong.
Oh God. All those times they’d moved…
Was this the reason?
“Is it really true?” She couldn’t make her voice rise above a whisper. Couldn’t stop her limbs from shaking. “Was the resort just a big scam?”
Her father started to get up from his chair. “Sweetheart—”
She cringed. Then she looked at Drew, who still stood immobile by the door.
“I’m sorry, Tash.”
Turning on her father, she lashed out. “You used my website to con people?”
The higher her voice rose, the lower her father’s fell. “On the books, you were just a contractor. You’ll be fine, sweetheart.”
She wanted to scream at him never to use that endearment again.
Drew reached for her hand, but stopped himself before he actually touched her. “That’s why we never wanted you to go to the building site. So no one could point a finger at you. And I made sure that you could never track—” He stopped, shut down by the look their father flashed him.
But she could barely hear what he was saying as her brain went round and round with what she’d just learned. Was this why her father had encouraged her college degree in web design and development? He must have seen the potential of her skills to bilk money out of unsuspecting victims and had just been biding his time until the perfect opportunity came along.
The perfect con.
It was monstrous.
“I’m so sorry, Tash,” her brother said again in an anguished voice. “I never meant to let you get hurt.”
But he’d been a part of it all. They’d both lied to her. Used her. She needed to think straight, needed to figure out how long this had been going on. “What did Eric mean, that he knew you and Dad from other cons?”
Her father spoke before Drew could. “We’ve worked with Eric before, that’s all. No big deal.”
She couldn’t believe he was trying to blow her off like she didn’t have ears to hear with or a head to think with. But maybe, it suddenly occurred to her, she didn’t. Otherwise, wouldn’t she have spotted the lies? Lies that must have started way back, when she was just a little girl? Before that, even.
“He used the word con,” she said, her voice getting stronger now. Harder. “Not job. And he said I could be arrested.”
In typical evasive fashion, her father said, “No one’s going to arrest you. We’ve already explained that.”
Growing up, she’d never questioned how her father paid for their fancy apartments and luxury cars, or the five-star vacations and her private school. All she’d known was that he was in “investments” like so many of her girlfriends’ fathers. She’d never let herself wonder too hard about why they’d so frequently had to pack up at a moment’s notice, always leaving so much behind.
But now, with the blindfold ripped from her eyes, she realized that in every single instance, her father must have been running away from whatever shady deal he’d had going.
How could she have been so blind?
“Are you a con man?” She needed to hear him say it.
