WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Allison lurched forward in the rocking chair, her hands gripping the arms.
Her mom waved her hands in the air. “Where do I start? Where would you like me to start, honey? From the beginning? That’s always a good place to start in situations like this, don’t you think?”
Allison forced herself to be patient. To not blurt out a thousand questions at once. “Yes. Sure. Wherever you want to.”
Her mom picked at the armrest of the couch and spoke in a singsong voice. “That’s why I have to sell the house. The Realtor says I’ll get $150,000 once commissions and paperwork are paid for, but that still leaves $350,000 to go. That’s a lot of money. A lot if you think about it. Quite a bit, yes, a great amount of money. I gave them what I had in savings, but that wasn’t much.”
“Why would you only clear $150,000? With as crazy as the Seattle-area market has been, this house has to be worth almost a million.”
“Yes, you’re right. Almost right. It’s listed for $985,000. Can you believe that? Seems like a silly amount of money for this house. We paid only $54,000 for it.” She sighed. “But that was a long time ago.”
“Then you have a tremendous amount of equity in it; you should—”
“But of course the mortgage company is quite concerned about getting their money. Can’t blame them. I don’t blame them. Why would I? It’s not their fault.”
“What are you talking about? You and Dad paid off this house years ago. And who do you owe the money to? And what for?”
“Ah yes. Paid off. That’s what you thought? I can see why you would. Me too.” Her mom stared out the window at the willow tree. “Do you remember we had that little party when your father announced that the house was paid off?”
“What happened, Mom? Why do you owe the money? Who do you owe it to?”
“Yes, right. I’m sorry. I keep getting distracted, don’t I?” She looked at the ceiling and a little smile came onto her face. “It was a lovely little celebration, though, don’t you think? Your dad did that slide show where he showed us all his before-and-after pictures of all the projects he did over the years.”
“What did Dad do?”
Her mom fixed her gaze on Allison. Up to that point her eyes had been glassy, her mouth slightly open even when she wasn’t speaking. Now her countenance shifted and she became the wife of a police force captain, the woman who was as fierce in conflict as any man. But a second later the look faded and her eyes glazed over again.
“Mom!”
“He had a double life.” A pitiful laugh came out of her mom’s mouth. “How did I miss that?”
A double life? Her dad? Not possible. He loved her mom. Never so much as glanced at other women with a roving eye.
“He had an affair? I can’t believe—”
“No, not that.” Her mom began to cry.
“What then?”
“Your dad had a vice, Ally. Not alcohol—we all knew about that one. And you know it wasn’t women.”
“What then?”
Her mom looked up at the mantel over the fireplace, at the family photo they’d taken when Allison was still in high school. Years before Joel died. A lifetime ago.
“I read once that you can sometimes tell what a pastor’s secret vice is by what he rails against the most.”
“What do you mean?”
“If a preacher screams about pornography, he’s probably addicted. If he shouts about the horrors of gay people, he’s probably gay himself. Adultery, alcohol . . . whatever. They’re fighting the compulsion privately, so they can’t help but come out against it publicly. It’s their cry for help. A way to absolve themselves.”
“What are you driving at?”
“If someone asked you what your dad was most passionate about shutting down, what would you say?”
Allison’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Illegal gambling.”
“Yes.” A long sigh from her mom. “What was the other one?”
“Human trafficking.”
“Yes.”
“No, Mom. No.” Allison’s heart seized. “You cannot tell me Dad was part of a human-trafficking ring.”
“He wasn’t. Not for a long time. And he was never, ever involved like you’re thinking. Never. But he started turning a blind eye. He took bribes to delay cases. Ignored tips when they came in.”
“Why? That’s not who he—”
“He needed the money.”
“For the gambling.”
“Yes.”
Allison’s head dropped and she closed her eyes. This was a nightmare. Not possible. Not her father.
“He won a lot apparently. Lost a lot too. Obviously. It took me a while to piece it all together. I’m told it was small bets at first. Then bigger. And it grew out of control. It got to the point where he’d win millions and lose millions. I suppose we should feel good the debt was only $550,000 when he died.”
“Only?”
A nervous giggle came from her mom. “I guess at one point he was down $3.2 million.”
“I don’t believe this.” Allison fell back against the rocking chair. “I simply can’t accept the idea—”
The giggle started to move toward hysterical. “That’s when he took out another mortgage on the house. And he sold his life insurance policy.”
“What do you mean, sold it?”
“There are companies that will give you up to eighty percent of the value of your life insurance policy when you’re alive in exchange for getting your policy when you die.”
“Who are the people who want the money, Mom?”
“Exactly who you think they are, Allison.”
Every image from every mafia movie and TV show she’d seen flashed through her mind. Men who broke fingers, shylocks who showed up in the middle of the night to put a gun to your head, men who killed with as much remorse as they felt tossing a bottle of wine into the garbage.
“We have to go to the police, Mom.”
Her mom looked at her as if she were a little girl again.
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” She patted her knees. “Yes, let’s go to the police. Let’s do that. Shall we do that right now?”
The irony of that idea struck Allison like a brick. Sure, they’d walk into her dad’s old precinct, gather all the cops who served under him, and explain that the man they called the greatest to ever run the place, the one they’d loved and showered with accolades, had been living a lie. Everyone had secrets. But her father’s would rock their world.
“We go to them anyway.”
Her mom shook her head. “It’s not what you’re thinking. No, it isn’t. The reason we can’t go to the police is that there’s no crime. This isn’t the mafia we’re talking about. The loans were legitimate. The men your father borrowed the money from are not criminals. They’re businesspeople. Not savory, no. But there’s nothing illegal about the way they loaned your dad the money.”
“The ones who gave him money for looking the other way are criminals!”
“Yes, but there are no records of that. And those aren’t the ones behind this loan.” Her mom drew both her hands down her face. “It’s bad, Ally. The men didn’t know about your dad’s cancer, and he always came up with the payments, and then he’d get ahead and pay them back, but then a run of bad luck kicked in, and—”
Allison opened her palms. “Then you file bankruptcy.”
A frightened look came into her mom’s eyes and she whispered, “No, don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
Her mom glanced around the room as if looking for hidden cameras.
“They told me if I tried to file for bankruptcy, life would get extremely unpleasant for me and for you and for Parker. They weren’t bluffing, Ally.”
“Now they are committing a crime.”
“No, they’re not. You know that. How many times would your dad come home with stories like this where there was no hard evidence to even arrest someone? No proof. There was nothing he could do then, and there’s nothing we can do now.”
“You’re telling me there’s no way to get out of this.”
“Only by paying off the debt.” Her mom stopped and peered at the spot where the last professional photo of her mom and dad had sat. “It’s funny. I can’t even look at his picture. I can’t believe he did this. Can’t believe he did it to you, to me, to Parker . . . and yet I still love him. I can’t help it. I still love him.” She glanced at Allison. “Does that make any sense?”
It made more sense than Allison wanted it to. She wanted to lash out at him for the lies, rush up to him and scream at him for the horrible things he’d done. She wanted to hate him and rip him from her memories. Hate him for all the harsh comments he’d made through the years, hate him for being married to his job instead of her mom, hate him for always harping on following the rules, hate him for loving Joel more than Parker or her.
She took a moment to settle and push the anger from her mind.
“So we’ll owe $400,000 once the house sells?” Allison asked.
“We? No, not we. This is my problem, not yours.”
“And the debt is accruing interest every month.”
“Yes.”
They sat in silence, glancing at each other uncomfortably.
Finally Allison said, “When were you going to tell me?”
“I wasn’t. I mean, I was going to get into an apartment first, then bring you over and—”
“With what money?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s why you were up on the ladder, isn’t it? Trying to fix the gutters before potential buyers start dropping in.”
Her mom’s head bobbed in affirmation.
“You should have told me. There’s no reason to carry this alone.”
“Yes, there is. I didn’t want to drag you into—”
“You didn’t. I’m choosing to jump in.” Allison pulled out her phone and started making notes.
“Okay.”
“I’m going to get Parker to help.”
Her mom released a bitter humph. “Good luck with that. You’d have to find him first.”
“I will. And I want the contact info on the loan sharks.”
“Okay.”
“You said they wanted their money sooner rather than later. What does that mean?”
“I told them I was selling my house, so they’d get at least $150,000 soon.”
“After you get them that, how much will the monthly payment be?”
“They want a minimum of $12,000 a month.”
Allison blew out a low whistle. “Wow.”
“How is your business going? Can it help? I’ll pay you back, of course.”
Allison stared at her mom for ten seconds. She wouldn’t lie to her mom, but she didn’t want to add another stone of worry to her mom’s load by describing the lack of accounts or her strained relationship with Kayla. And yet Allison had to let her mom know her floundering business wouldn’t be much help in paying off the massive debt.
Even if she stripped her expenses to the bone and combined that money with what her mom brought in from teaching, they’d still be thousands short each month.
“Al?”
“It could be better.”
Her mom frowned. “I thought you two were getting accounts.”
“We are, we have . . . but the accounts are small. Sporadic. We get one and lose one. We haven’t found that anchor client yet. We’re making survival money but not big money yet. So we don’t have an assistant, which would allow us to—”
“I can quit the school and come and—”
“Nope. Let’s not make this about me. We are going to get you out of this. Somehow. Some way. First, you’re going to move in with me immediately. That way the house will show clean, and I can take care of you while you heal.”
They stared at each other for what seemed years, till her mom dropped her gaze and slumped back on the couch.
“I have some money saved from the divorce,” Allison finally said. “And I can take out a home equity loan.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can.” Allison glanced at her watch. She had to go. “I have an appointment, Mom.”
“Yes. Go.”
Allison stood, walked over to her mom, and kissed her on the forehead.
“What are we going to do, Ally?”
“Simple. We’re going to pray for a miracle.”
The miracle came twenty-four hours later.