Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
He’s been without a job all of that time. What has he been doing in the daytime? On the days I visited, I’ve always seen him go off to work in the morning. He’s kept up an elaborate pretense for me all this time.
What else is he hiding if he’s gambling again and he’s lost his job?
I flip through the rest of the pages, unable to believe what I’m reading. There’s evidence here that Dad has exhausted his bank account. Another letter from the bank was supposed to be for a property investment – upgrading something on the house. He hadn’t used it for that, and I know that must be fraud to a serious degree. He can’t pay it back, either.
There are highlighted payments into his account of cash going in from visits to banks, which means he must have got a lot of cash from somewhere. A loan shark, I bet, or maybe the occasional big win at whatever bets he might have been putting on.
I don’t even know what kind of gambling he’s been doing. In the past, he bet on horse and dog racing, card games in casinos, and other forms. I think he would probably bet on how fast paint would dry if he didn’t have any other opportunities.
Or something else even more nefarious, judging by the rest of the pages – which include a witness account of someone saying that he’s been seen working with some of the gang members who run the gambling place that Hunter and I saw yesterday.
And there’s more. My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach at seeing more photographs, shots that Hunter must have taken from security footage, and converting them into stills.
Pictures of my Dad outside a strip club, then going inside, then going right up to one of the women in there and kissing her. More pages of highlighted lines from his bank account statements show purchases of flowers, lingerie, and jewelry. Expensive purchases. Things that a man in his financial situation has no chance of affording.
Gifts for her, whoever she is.
My heart breaks as I look at the story this information tells. A man sucked into the world of illegal gambling and criminal activity, someone who was once an upstanding citizen with a good job. Someone who only fell off the rails because his wife – my mother – died.
And now he’s dating a stripper, buying her presents, having people threaten to kill him if he doesn’t pay them back, and spending money he doesn’t have.
I bury my head in my hands. How could it have come to this point?
As I sit there, I hear the sound of the water above my head cut off. Hunter must be through the showering. That means he will probably be down here in a matter of minutes. He’s going to find me in his office with this file in front of me.
This file that he hid from me.
Why the hell did he hide it from me?
I saw him meeting that man, paying him for something…
He’s been gathering all of this evidence and keeping it secret from me. But why?
I think about what Hunter said when we were doing surveillance on the gambling den. About why we should take pictures – in order to use them against my Dad, to show him that we knew what he was up to.
Pictures like these could be used in other ways, too. They could be given to the police to get a conviction against him. He could go to jail just with the evidence about the bank loan alone. And the rest….
The other way something like this could be used would be blackmail. Blackmail to get Hunter whatever he wants. Maybe not money – because, as far as I know, he seems to have plenty.
But maybe that’s it. Maybe he gets his money through blackmail. Or maybe he can use this information to wrap my father even further in the world of criminals, and I’m going to find out that Hunter is working for them.
Oh, god.
If my father is about to get blackmailed, I need to do something.
I grab the files and get up from around the desk, bolting to the front door and quickly shoving my feet into my shoes. I hear Hunter coming down the stairs behind me, but I don’t stop to wait for him. Instead, I lunge for the door, jump outside, and slam it shut behind me.
And then I run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Hunter
“Jenna?” I call out. The sound of the front door slamming has me rushing down the last few steps and looking toward it, but I can’t see anyone coming inside. I move forward and open the door to check outside – maybe there’s someone out there.
But nothing. I can’t see a thing. I glance left and right and then close the door, sighing to myself. What was that?