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All of her starch seems to wilt, suddenly leaving a sad, broken woman in the place of one filled with bravado just moments before. “Look, Wesley…”
“That’s not my name.”
“Okay,Dr. Alister. I’m in a bit of a bad way. I’m tapped out. Penniless. Flat-ass broke. I need help.” She turns away like she can’t stand to look me in the eye.
“You need help from me? I’ll give you some free advice then. Get a job.”
She scoffs again.
“No, seriously. Businesses around here are looking for people to work for them all over the place. You could find a job by lunchtime tomorrow if you tried. But what happened to your funds? Petra said you came from money.”
“I… um… well… Are you gonna help me or what?”
“I don’t particularly see any reason I should. I work hard for my income the same way Callum and Petra do. We don’t look for handouts. Petra is grateful for the education you provided her with, but it’s not her responsibility to keep you in first-class tickets to Timbuktu just because you want to live beyond your means. Grow up.”
“I don’t live beyond my means…” she tries to convince me by taking a new approach. She stands, bats her eyelashes, and wiggles her booty.
“Oh right. You sold a condo in Chicago a year ago, and now you’repenniless? Where did that money go? You must have had a pretty good sale.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“You’re right. You don’t. But I don’t trust you, and Idon’thave to allow you to stay in my house and steal from someone I care deeply about.”
“Aw. Isn’t that sweet? You’re jealous and in love.”
“And you’re on very thin ice, lady. But because I care about Petra’s feelings, I’ll make you a deal. If you start looking for a job tomorrow—looking for real, not faking it—I’ll let you stay here for a week. But if you’re just here to fleece your daughter and cause trouble, you’re gone. Got it? I’m serious about calling the police.”
“I haven’t done anything you can report to them, Wesley.”
“I told you that isn’t my name.”
“Whatever.” She sashays by me then with a snotty look on her face and accidentally on purpose steps on my bare toes as she stomps out of the room, saying, “Whoops.”
My skin crawls as I hear her giggling her way down the stairs. I probably should follow her to make sure she isn’t up to more questionable antics, but suddenly I’m hit with a wave of extreme sleepiness. I can’t wait to crawl back into bed and curl up next to Petra. I’d love to keep her safe all night.
In the morningwe head to breakfast, and Petra calls down the basement stairway to her mom. But when she gets no answer, she goes downstairs to see if Maggie is still sleeping.
Petra reappears in the kitchen looking confused. “She’s gone. And her stuff is all gone too.”
Steaming with rage inside, I tell Petra, “It pains me to say that I found her in your room and had a conversation with her at around two or three this morning. She was unsuccessfully trying to hack into your banking app, so I suggest you check to see if you have any missing valuables.”
Petra looks stricken but rushes to her room wordlessly. She returns to the kitchen with tears in her eyes. “My checkbook is missing and so it my laptop. What should I do?”
“I put the laptop in my bedroom, so it’s safe, but call your bank immediately. It’s still pretty early. Hopefully, she hasn’t done too much damage yet. I’m so sorry I didn’t wake you up last night to tell you, but I hoped she wouldn’t take it this far.”
Twenty-Seven
Petra
This is a nightmare.I realize now that my mom also took my bank card and my credit card and has already gone on a spending spree that started at about seven this morning. At least Weston secured my laptop. If he hadn’t, I might be out of a job on top of everything else.
I’ve reported her to the credit card company and the bank—who swears that as soon as the local branch opened,Icashed a check for fifty thousand dollars—the royalty money I just recently deposited into the account. I don’t get paid often, but when I do the payments tend to be large. Anyway, the signature matched what they had on file, and she had the proper ID, so they let it happen. According to my credit card company, she also took an Uber to the airport and bought a ticket to Chicago on American. I don’t understand what’s happened to her and where all of her money went. Has she ever loved me, or have I become her cash cow? I feelhorrible.
“How could she have an ID in my name?” I ask the guys.
“Sadly, if you know the right people, a fake ID isn’t that hard to come by,” Weston tells me as he drags me in for a comforting hug.
Callum—who called his work and said he’d be a little late due to a “family emergency”—comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me too. I feel their comfort pouring into me, and it honestly goes a long way to making me feel better. Then Callum kind of ruins it by asking, “Do you think she may have been scamming you for a long time, sweetheart? Have you ever seen money disappear from your account before?”
