Billionaire Corruption, page 16
“The McKinney family is one of the best in the city!” my father said, his voice rising.
“I wouldn’t say the best, not really. You really think your work at the firm has come close to what the McKinneys have been doing on the streets? Uncle Rich and his goons, working extortion rackets and protection rings?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” My father was spluttering with rage.
“And he’s been helping you out too, with various loans over the years. Does mother know how much you owe him?”
“How do you know this?” my father whispered, shocked.
“I… I… didn’t tell anyone.”
“No, you may not have. But Uncle Rich was not that discreet.”
My father was blinking fast, his eyes seeming unable to focus. I could see the confusion on his face.
“That’s not the point though, I’m leaving Ladden, and I think you have to stop your connection to the company. Dissolve your partnership. That would be best.”
“But… but…”
“Unless you want the FBI coming around, digging in your accounts.”
I got up, getting ready to leave.
“I’m done with all this, Father. I intend on leaving the city and starting a different life somewhere else.”
“But the McKinney legacy…” his voice sounded almost whiny.
“What legacy?” I said contemptuously. “I’m tired of hearing about it, I’ve been listening to this nonsense all my life. I want to live my own life and be happy. Nobody is going to stop me.”
My father exhaled and nodded.
“I understand. I’m sorry it came to this. But what about Brock? I don’t think he will be able to just let you go?”
I grimaced. “Leave Brock to me,” I said.
Chapter 29
Grace
It was freezing the day I left my mother’s house. Dressed in a coat, with the hood up and mittens, she came to give a hug before Tyler drove me to the bus station.
“Thanks so much for coming, honey,” her eyes filled with tears. “I really loved having you here.” Behind her the twins were running around, causing havoc. All of us ignored them.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you,” I said. “I guess I needed to do some growing up of my own.”
My mom pulled me into a hard hug.
“Look after yourself now, let me know your next move.”
I had told her the night before that I was leaving, but not where I was going. I was keeping that information close to my heart. I needed it to be, not so much a secret, as something special, not to be shared with anyone. I had spoken to my grandmother and asked her if she thought I could take some time off, be by myself for a bit.
“Why?” she asked, and I could hear the concern in her voice.
It was hard to explain to her that I had spent my entire life up till this point, worrying about the family, looking after Toby, and making sure everything was all right at the house. But Toby was doing okay now, he was almost finished with high school and could look after himself. I needed some time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, not what others wanted me to do, but what was best for me.
Paul had texted me when he got back to the city, and I was glad to hear that he had a plan. Every now and then, I would think of Alana, with her feisty attitude and her fabulous hair style, and I’d think of her last words to me. In a way, I felt like I was taking a baton from her. This is what she wanted to do but was unable to. I would take her intention to get out and live her life, I would do it for her and for myself.
I knew it was the right decision.
I’d already emailed my resignation to the company, and I let Toby know I was going to be away for a while, but I’d keep in touch. “Enjoy it!” he said, sounding entirely capable of surviving without me for a few days.
At the bus station, Tyler waited with me, even though he didn’t have to.
“I’m so glad you made peace with your mother. It’s been eating her up, this thing between you,” he said.
I looked down, feeling a bit guilty about having been so unforgiving.
“There was a lot I didn’t know,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “She didn’t want you to know. But at the same time, I think she did. She was dying to tell you,” he laughed, shaking his head.
The bus arrived and I got on, waving goodbye to him as we headed north.
Paul sent me a text, asking me what I was doing.
Just got on a bus.
He asked: Where to?
I looked out the window, smiling to myself. I didn’t know why I was being so secretive.
You’ll have to figure it out by yourself.
In the late afternoon, the bus pulled into the parking lot of the depot and a few of us got off. I didn’t have too much luggage and I found a taxi to take me into town. I opened the door, and the smell of cinnamon sugar almost knocked me off my feet. It was toasty and warm, and I took off my coat right away.
“You made it!” Margaret came over and gave me a hug. I had texted her that I was coming.
“Looks like there might be a storm coming,” she gazed outside anxiously. “Might even get some snow. Hot chocolate?”
She looked thinner to me, her face gaunt.
“Let me help you,” I said, and she gave me a knowing look as I took the plates of pie from her.
I had been corresponding with Margaret ever since I got back to New York. Without telling her too much about our troubles there, she surmised that I was facing some real danger and risks. She told me I was welcome any time to come help her pack up her things and start taking over the coffee shop. She said she could show me the system, introduce me to her suppliers, as well as the customers. That way, the transition would be easier anyway. To top it all, there was an apartment right above the shop. It was only a tiny one bedroom, but it was enough for me for a while. She said she had sometimes rented it out, but it was empty right now.
I went up the stairs and took a look around. It was small and plain, with bare walls and only a few bits of furniture. A bed, a table and a chair. The window looked out over the street and the bay, and this view of the ocean was simply breathtaking. Margaret came up the stairs, huffing a bit from the effort, holding some linen and a lovely, detailed quilt.
“But this is beautiful!” I exclaimed, “Don’t you want it anymore?”
Margaret waved a hand. “Oh, I’ve made so many of these over the years, my house is full of them.”
I looked at the patches of color, different shades of blue and green and gray, making a dreamy ocean theme. The embroidery was so fine and delicate, I marveled at the handiwork.
“I wish we had more time,” I said wistfully, “Then you could show me how to make these.”
“It’s not hard at all,” Margaret said, smiling kindly at me. “Basic sewing, really.”
But my mother had never taught me to sew and the arthritis in my grandmother’s hands had made it difficult for her to do any kind of handiwork. Margaret promised to show me how she made her quilts in the quiet afternoons, when the coffee shop wasn’t busy.
I loved being in Port Victoria, working with Margaret in the coffee shop during the day, getting to know the ins and outs of the business. When she saw that I was getting the hang of things, she started leaving me alone in the shop, to sort things out at her house. Some nights, I went over to help her pack up her cupboards and sort through her things. I could tell that it was hard for her to give up her cottage and her life here, even though she was looking forward to moving closer to her daughter.
“I’m so glad we had this time together,” she said one evening, showing me her scrap material collection, which she had promised to give to me. “It’s given me such a good feeling, knowing the shop is in able hands, with people who genuinely love it, the way I’ve loved it.”
About a week after I had arrived in Port Victoria, I was one afternoon leaning out of the window, looking at the street and the fine dusting of snow that had fallen during the day. A car pulled up in the street in front of the coffee shop. A familiar shape got out of the car, a tall man in a bulky coat.
It was Paul.
He seemed to feel me looking at him because he turned his head towards the apartment.
Our eyes locked and he lifted a hand slowly in greeting.
He’d found me.
Of course, he’d found me.
I rushed down the stairs as he was coming up them and leaped into his arms, breathing in his wonderful smell.
“How did you know where I was?”
“Where else would you be?” he asked me and kissed me, deeply. “My God, I’ve missed you,” he said.
I had missed him too.
I showed him the apartment. “I’m afraid it’s not the Ritz,” I said.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
“Well…“ I didn’t want to tell him about the lumpy mattress and the faulty heating, the fact that the apartment could get noisy early in the morning when the kitchen staff got ready to open the shop. There were no heated towel rails, no expensive Italian coffee machines.
“I’ve changed,” he said. “I’m not that guy in the suit anymore,” he said, pointing at his jersey, the jeans he was wearing. “That Paul is gone. I hope you won’t mind.”
“I love this Paul,” I said, realizing too late what I had said, blushing furiously.
“I mean…” but he put a finger to my lips, to stop me from backtracking.
“I love you too, all of you. The old you, the new you.”
He kissed me again.
“I want us to be together, forever. To make a new life here, or wherever we want, as long as we are together.”
“Me too.” I was so happy I could barely speak.
“In fact,” he said, suddenly feeling in his pocket.
“I was going to wait for the right moment, but this is it, isn’t it?”
He sank down on one knee and held out a small box.
“Will you marry me, Grace Bishop?” he asked me, his eyes bluer than the brightest fabric on my quilt.
“Of course I will,” I said, jumping into his arms.
I knew he had done some things that were wrong, that he’d made terrible deals with horrible people, even decisions that had hurt people. But he was willing to change, willing to make me happy and right now, that meant figuring out how to create big swirls of foam in cappuccino cups. I realized that all along, I wasn’t looking for perfect after all, but for perfect for me.
Chapter 30
Paul
We planned to get married in the spring or summer, a simple ceremony at City Hall, followed by a big reception at a hotel in the city. Grace would have liked to have the wedding here, in Maine, but that would mean travel for her grandmother and inconvenience for them.
I told her we could elope, perhaps host a special dinner with her family but it was important to her to have them there.
“I have already moved out of the house, I don’t want to have my wedding without them too. They need to be there,” she said.
It was not the same for me. I didn’t need my family to be anywhere near me, at all. After the bombshell dropped in the media about Ladden, I was glad to get out of the city and stuck into all kinds of small business problems at the coffee shop. I got into the habit of leaving my phone on silent and only checking messages at night. During the day, we painted, hung cupboards, sanded the floors. A lot of the work was done during a two-week period in winter when heavy snow cut the power in some areas in town, making the roads treacherous and forcing most folks to stay indoors.
Not that the place really needed it, but I wanted to keep busy and take my mind off the trial. Agent Dyer had kept his word, not prosecuting my father and arresting Jerome Cobb instead. Brock Brenneman surprised many by resigning as chairman of the board to take up sailing and fulfil his lifelong dream of sailing around the world. When I told Grace how I had managed to engineer that, she had not been convinced that it was the right way to go.
“I have no proof that he had Alana killed,” I reminded her. “All I have is that footage of a man who looks a lot like Kyle Anderson, but I can’t say for sure. “
Kyle was Brock’s driver, a man I had seen up close many times. Unusually tall, he had a slight stoop when he walked, as if to make himself look smaller. When I’d seen the video of the tall man going up the Ladden escalator at ten o’clock at night, I had immediately wondered what he was doing there. Was Brock there, and if so, why? There was no footage of Brock coming down either.
I had called Brock shortly before resigning and told him that he would be leaving me and my family, as well as my fiancée in peace. No more threats or scare tactics. We were moving on with our lives and he should too, preferably away from Ladden. If he found himself unable to agree to that, I would talk to Agent Dyer about the video and how I recognized his henchman. I would recall how Kyle had, in the past, done some dirty work for Brock, like procuring escorts and drugs for a group of Chinese executives who wanted to party. I also happened to know that when one of the party guests collapsed due to an overdose, Kyle had simply driven the unconscious person to the nearest hospital, dropping the body on the street without even taking them inside.
Police would take an interest in a story like that, I said, I was sure other details were likely to emerge.
Brock had been very silent on the phone, ominously so. But I was done with this world. I couldn’t quite see him coming up to Maine, waving a snow shovel at me in warning. He knew that I had more dirt on him, his involvement in setting up fake accounts and trying to evade tax, specifically.
“You don’t think he deserves to go to jail?” Grace asked me one night as we lay shivering under the scratchy sheets in her bed in the apartment over the shop.
“Of course, he does, but that does not necessarily mean that he will,” I reminded her. I often thought of my luxurious penthouse in the city, where the temperature was always perfect. Unlike here, where the thermostat was somehow always wrong and mostly, too cold.
Margaret had offered us her house as a place to live until she could sell it but Grace, perversely, wanted to stay in the apartment over the shop.
“I love it here,” she said, hugging me tightly. “Please can we stay here instead? I need to see the ocean; I love it when the ferry comes by.”
I didn’t particularly want to spend money right now anyway. I had received a message from the IRS involving back taxes that they had been able to claim from me, thanks to the information the FBI had received. They were able to locate additional income that I must have forgotten to declare. The back taxes and fine for non-payment were substantial, it cut deeply into my savings.
I had to tell her one evening that unfortunately, my financial situation had changed, and I was no longer a billionaire.
“You are also no longer single and on the market,” she said, pulling me close and silencing all my fears with a delicate tongue and a soft nibble on my ear. We had fallen into a comfortable rhythm in Port Victoria and as the warmer weather arrived, we started preparing for the wedding.
I had managed to get us an exclusive rooftop wedding venue for the reception, which was going to be a lunch for our families mostly. Considering that the number of guests would be low, I could spend more on flowers and food, which suited us anyway.
The scandal surrounding Ladden meant that I didn’t want to invite too many friends from my former life, and I didn’t want to invite Uncle Richard either. My mother told me on the phone that he would feel affronted by that, and I told her I didn’t care.
“If all this makes you too uncomfortable to attend, I totally understand,” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she spluttered, “We’ll be there, of course!”
Elise told me the real issue was that they felt sidelined by the way in which I had taken control of my life, not involving them in the wedding planning or the reception. They had wanted to host the ceremony, perhaps invite some highflyers to an event at their house.
“This is not about them,” I reminded Elise.
“I know, but Father is trying to rebuild his reputation, he didn’t come out scot-free from the whole Ladden business,” she said.
“That’s his own fault,” I said. “Nothing to do with me.”
Meeting Grace’s father had been interesting. But Mick Bishop had shaken my hand, slapped me on the back and said with the friendliest of smiles, “If you hurt my daughter, I hope you know I will put a bicycle spoke in your heart before you can even think to call for help.” He paused and winked, “If you can live with that, we’re good.”
The day of the wedding arrived, a somewhat blustery day with patchy sunshine. Grace was nervous about the dress and the reception, seating her family with mine at the main table was a bit of a risk, considering that our mothers had absolutely nothing in common apart from once upon a time, birthing children.
But, again, I reminded Grace, this was not our problem.
Perhaps, this was one of the biggest lessons I’d learnt over the past few years, how to identify the problems I absolutely needed to solve, and which weren’t more than minor headaches that went away all by themselves if you left them.
Grace delayed coming back to the city.
She hadn’t been back since leaving New York months ago after the incident with the car. We booked into a hotel, but she went back to see her grandmother and brother and she was fearful about being out on the streets.
I assured her that the drama was over.
But I could see she was struggling to believe it.
One evening, I got a call from my Uncle Richard.
“I must have missed my wedding invite,” he said to me in a joking voice.
“There wasn’t one,” I said. A long silence followed.
“Kind of hard not to take it the wrong way, son,” he said, his voice filled with sorrow.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about wrong ways, Uncle Rich,” I said.
“Sometimes what we think is the right path turns out to be wrong,” he reminded me.
“Or, the wrong one, takes us to the right places,” I said. “I think that’s what happened to me.”
