He nodded. “I did. Now I do better self-employed.”
“What do you want with me?”
“I heard your story and I thought maybe we should talk. Because I have the feeling you and I are the only two people who know the truth.”
“That Landen’s a crook. That the twenty million dollars he says I stole, is how he’s covering his scheme of using new investor money to pay off bad investments. I’d bet on it. No one who is drinking the way he does is making money for his clients at the rate he says he is. Which means he’s lying.”
Benfield smiled. “Exactly. And you’re going to help me prove it. Now, join me?”
I nodded. I turned to John. “Thanks, but I’ve got this covered from here.”
He laughed. “Fuck yeah, you do. Call me if you need me. I can at least be co-counsel.”
I stepped inside the limo, and both Entwhistle and Benfield followed. Comfortably, we sat on the deep leather seats while the driver moved us effortlessly into New York traffic.
“I’ve already notified the prosecutor who has your case to turn over all evidence to your defense team, but I can already see flaws,” Entwhistle said.
“Flaws sounds good,” I said. “Flaws sounds like freedom.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Entwhistle said sternly. “You did take the two thousand dollars. They can clearly follow that trail of money.”
“It was money I earned,” I insisted. “That was in an account in my name. The growth was from my investment strategy. It wasn’t Landen’s money.”
“Not according to the agreement you signed,” Benfield said.
“There was no agreement,” I said. “I was given an account and told to grow it.”
“It was there, trust me,” Benfield said, looking out the window at the passing city. “Somewhere in the paperwork you signed when you were first hired. It wouldn’t have been explained. You might have thought you were enrolling for the health-care benefit, and, the next thing you know, they’ve got you dead to rights. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter? If I’m convicted of embezzlement, that’s the end of my career. My fucking life.”
Benfield pressed his fingers together in a triangle. “No, going to prison for ten plus years is the end of your fucking life. This is an obstacle to overcome.”
I didn’t agree, but I’d spent over a week in prison learning to stifle my emotions. Swallow them, suppress them, bury them so deep I was only left with numbness. This was no different. I was still a pawn in this game, only now there was a new king on the chessboard.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him. “Why do you even care what happens to me?”
“I don’t care what happens to you,” Benfield said bluntly. “I care what happens to Arthur Landen. He’s a cheat and a thief. For a time, he made my life very difficult. I’m in a position now where I can repay that difficulty, and I feel you’re the tool, or shall I say weapon, that can make it happen.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to find the evidence that proves Landen is every bit the crook I say he is.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked, exasperated. “It’s not like he’s going to let me in the front door?”
Dean smiled blandly. “Then I suggest you use the back door.”
15
Landen estate
Ashleigh
Tap, tap... Tap.
I glanced up from the book I was trying to read but was mostly just staring at. The soft double tap at my door, followed by a pause and another tap, meant it was George. He didn’t have the key to open the door, but he’d been checking on me regularly.
He’d also been providing me with updates on what was happening with my father, Evan and Marc.
I knew the wedding had been moved up. I was to be re-married in a few weeks. Plans were being made. My father had brought in a dress and told me to put it on to see if it fit. I’d found a pair of scissors in my drawer and had cut it up into tiny pieces, shoving each piece individually under my door.
That had been the last contact I’d had with him.
“What’s happening?”
“Marc’s out on bail,” George said, through the door.
“What? How?” It had been my greatest frustration. Being trapped in this house, not having access to the money that could have freed him. The guilt felt like pressure wrapped around my chest.
But there was also a small part of me that thought maybe it was for the best. Maybe he was safer in a place where Evan and my father couldn’t touch him. It wasn’t permanent. I had to believe it.
These days, my father wasn’t all that clever. His brain being perpetually soaked in booze. I had to hope any phony evidence he’d planted would be easily ripped apart by a decent defense attorney.
My only struggle was how Marc would find that attorney, and I’d spent days searching the internet for a decent one I could afford. Now, it seemed there was another player in the game. A player I didn’t know, and I didn’t like that. Marc and I had George, and that was it. That was the sum total of people we could trust right now.
“He called me from Long Island. He’s staying at a house out there. Some former employee of your father’s who has a grudge against him. He’s helping Marc.
“The enemy of my enemy,” I muttered. But was he a friend?
“He told me to tell you not to be worried. To do whatever your father wants so as not to antagonize him, and that as soon as all this is behind him, he will come for you.”
“He doesn’t know the wedding has been pushed up,” I said, resting my forehead against the door.
There was a pause before George finally said, “No. I didn’t know what to tell him. What you wanted me to tell him. I wanted him to focus on his own problem instead.”
I nodded, even though George couldn’t see me. “That’s probably best. He can’t stop it, and I don’t want him thinking about me when he needs to be thinking about his case.”
I hated to ask it. I hated I was so weak I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
“Did he say anything else? Was he mad? Is he angry at me for causing all this?”
Does he hate me now?
“You didn’t cause this. Your father did. Sanderson did. Peanut, tell me what to do. I can get you out of this room if you need me to. Take you some place and hide you.”
“No. It can’t be like that. They’re too powerful. It would be too easy to track our movements, and we don’t know what they’ll try to do to Marc if that happens. It has to…”
It has to be done right.
It’s what I’d concluded after weeks of being trapped in this room. Weeks to think and plan. Weeks to realize how restricted and limited my choices were—if there were, indeed, any choices to be made. Weeks to realize exactly how much of Marc’s future they were holding hostage.
We were connected, and, as long as we were, they could use each of us to hurt the other. George, too, for that matter. He had to act like everyone else was acting, like this was all totally normal. Because that was the only way we were going to beat them at their own game.