AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He waved his hands. “That’s such a misnomer.”
Before she could reply to that ridiculous statement, Drew added, “We liberate money from people who are too stupid to make good use of it.”
She turned her head just enough to stare at her brother. He sounded like a parrot, repeating a phrase someone had taught him. A phrase their father had taught him.
“We never go after old people or the vulnerable,” Drew continued in what she was sure he thought must be a reasonable tone. “Only people who don’t deserve the kind of money they have. People who inherited a big chunk of money they didn’t work for, or cash they came by nefariously.”
This couldn’t be her brother, whom she’d loved and looked up to since she was a kid. Drew’s biggest goal in life had been to join their father’s company and make their dad proud of him. But he’d clearly been brainwashed by the great Reggie Summerfield into thinking that stealing was okay as long as you stole from people who didn’t “deserve” the money.
All so that her father could turn his son into a criminal.
Anger roiled, bubbling up to overwhelm her as she rounded on her father. “I can’t believe you did this to Drew. I can’t believe you gave me a commission to make a website so that you could bamboozle unsuspecting people into giving you money for nothing.” Perhaps that should have been the worst of it, but it was his more personal crimes against her that made the bile rise higher in her throat. “And that you would do something so disgusting as encouraging me to date your partner in crime!”
She was about to be sick all over the expensive hardwood floors…paid for with stolen money.
“Sweetheart. It’s not as bad as you think.” Her father’s tone was conciliatory, cajoling, as though he could bring her around with pretty words.
“I trusted you.” Because they were family, and family was never supposed to hurt you.
How could she ever trust anyone again when she couldn’t even believe in her own flesh and blood? The worst was losing Drew. That was so much harder than losing Eric. No wonder she hadn’t known how she’d react to the idea of a little velvet box and a marriage proposal. Somewhere down deep, she must have known her boyfriend couldn’t possibly be for real.
But she’d never suspected her own father and brother weren’t for real either.
“There’s no way anything can come back on you,” her father said. Still no apologies. No remorse. “But it would be better for you to get out of town before the investigators come to question you.”
That was all Tasha could take. She couldn’t bear to listen to one more excuse or horrible truth.
With one last look at her brother—and not one glance to spare for her father—Tasha ran.
* * *
She kept on running until she found seclusion in the mountains of South Lake Tahoe, then bought the run-down cabin super cheap, hoping the work to fix it up would occupy her mind to the exclusion of everything else.
During the last three months, she’d installed a shower, toilet, and bathroom sink. She had electricity, running water, and mounted a wood-burning stove so she wouldn’t freeze. She would have turned off the Internet to further isolate herself from the rest of the world, but when her fixer-upper needed way more work than she’d anticipated, she needed her computer to watch how-to videos on carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and cement work. But apart from watching DIY videos, she’d scrubbed her existence from email, Facebook, and all other social media, and spent no additional time online.
Since leaving San Francisco, she’d returned to the city only once for a handful of days to meet with the investi
gators. She’d not only given back her commission for building the Lakeside Ventures website—she would never keep ill-gotten gains—she’d also told the investigators what she knew about the resort scam, which wasn’t much, given that she had no idea where her father or brother had gone; they’d disappeared like wisps of fog in the sun. Thankfully, the authorities had managed to freeze the business accounts, with most of the money intact, so that the bulk of the bilked investors would receive reparations.
In the end, the investigators had let her go, believing she hadn’t known the true nature of the resort con. In her heart, though, she still felt corrupted, not only by this scam, but by all the times she hadn’t asked questions about the other ones.
During her final days in the city, she’d finished up the last of her website contracts, then shut down her business. She missed brainstorming with her clients, helping them bring their visions to life, building something that could potentially change their lives for the better. After losing her father, her brother, and her boyfriend, throwing her business into the gutter had damn near broken the last piece of her heart. But she couldn’t allow herself to keep any lifeline to the real world.
Especially when it hadn’t been real at all.
These past months, she’d desperately missed conversation, missed shooting the breeze with someone, anyone. Apart from hello and how are you with the clerks at the grocery and hardware stores, she hadn’t had a meaningful conversation with a single person since she’d come to Tahoe. She hadn’t called any of her friends before she went underground, simply sent a group email to say she’d been overworking and needed a break so she’d be gone awhile—like forever. Then she’d ditched her phone so she wouldn’t be tempted to call anyone.
She missed her friends terribly. But if she reached out to any of them, how could she ever tell them what an idiot she’d been? And, far worse, how could she ever atone for the lives that had been ruined because she hadn’t woken up earlier to the con that was her life?
Loneliness was what she deserved. Loneliness was her punishment.
All she had was this cabin. This was her home now, the only home she could truly say was hers after how rootless her father’s existence had kept them all. She had the clean air and the cool lake. In time, she might deserve more, but for now, she’d exiled herself to this little corner of the world until she could learn how to judge people’s motives correctly. Until she could remember never to take anything at face value. Until she could figure out what was so wrong with her that she made excuses for people rather than face the truth.
She’d thought she had such a great life, a fabulous boyfriend, a loving family. But it had all been a sham. Even the good memories couldn’t be trusted. They were just illusions. Only this lake, this cabin, this clean crisp air, and the birds chattering loudly in the trees above were real.
As real as the terror shooting through her as she tumbled toward the edge of the roof—and a fall that was certain to do as much damage to her body as her family had done to her heart.
Chapter Three
