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The news hit him hard and left him in denial. “No. That can’t happen, Timmy. I reported everything. Sascha knows where all the paperwork and books are. Didn’t she give them to whoever came looking into it?”
“Oh, yeah; she gave them everything they asked for and it took a team of four men all week to go through it—and now we’re shut down, Gavin!” He slammed the gas pedal to the floor and hurdled them through curves so fast that the truck skidded nearly sideways.
Gavin was terrified and then grew angered. “Stop the truck right here, Timmy. I’ll walk.”
“No, you’re gonna sit there until we get home. They confiscated your old cars and they’re going through your things at home, too. Seems you have a lot of explaining to do when you get back and I’m gonna see to it that you do get there.
And get there, they certainly did. In record time, too. Gavin was glad to get out of the truck and away from the irate Timmy. There were men waiting at his house, too. Men in suits. The front door was open and some other men were carrying out some of his things, loading them into a van.
Two policemen approached Gavin and asked him to accompany them down to the station.
At the station, Gavin answered questions and more questions, provided proof, paperwork, almost all they needed except the proof that he had paid the proper taxes over the last few years for the company.
That he didn’t have, couldn’t produce. After admitting to his fault, Gavin listened as the men explained that the company would be liquidated to clear up the matter and put him right with the government again.
There was no bargaining; there was no truckling; there was only finality. Either the company was to be liquidated or Gavin could sit in a little cell until the government decided he’d repaid his debt and let him out again.
That wasn’t even an option.
The construction company was gone.
Jobs, gone.
Women, gone.
His valuable collectibles, gone.
That night, Gavin couldn’t face sleeping in his upturned house alone. Taking all the cash from his second hidden safe—which only held a few thousand dollars—that hadn’t been found, he drove his beater pickup to the local cheap motel and booked a room for the week there.
All he could think about was how to get Linda back. It seemed to him that his other women, all his valuable collectibles, his restored cars, his amassed money, his company were all disposable—even to him, which came as a great surprise.
Linda.
He had to get her back or there was no point to any of it.
She had been the glue holding his world together the whole time and he’d not seen it until his world had dissolved around him.
Chapter 9
(Linda)
It was splashed all over the news about Gavin and his company. Linda cried when she watched the reports. Joan cried with her.
“How could I have been with him all that time and never know what he was doing? How did he hide the real Gavin from me for all those years, Joan?”
“Apparently greed is a great motivator for all kinds of deception, Linda.”
Linda’s phone rang. She looked at the screen and ignored the call.
“Him again?” Joan handed her a sweet tea.
“Mm-hm.” She took the piece of paper from the coffee table and handed it to Joan. Until then, she’d kept it secret, unsure if any of it was true.
Cautiously, Joan opened the paper and began to read. “Oh, dear! Do you think it’s all true?”
Linda pointed to the television. “Obviously the worst parts are true; I don’t know about the other women, not all of them anyway, but yes, there were many—I checked and they all said the same things about him and their affairs with him. None of them knew about the others, or about me.” Linda looked down at the floor, her heart breaking again.
Joan laid the paper on the table.
