Austin held Sonya’s hand as they walked into the bank. For the first time, he had hope that they’d finally have an answer for his father’s behavior about the property.
Mr. Foster, the bank manager, spotted him and met them in the wide lobby. “Mr. Hubbard. So nice to see you. My condolences on the loss of your grandfather.”
“Thank you, Mr. Foster.” Austin held his hand out. “This is my girlfriend, Sonya.”
Mr. Foster shook her hand. “So nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Sonya’s smile made the other man stand taller.
“I’m here about my grandfather’s accounts.”
“I wondered when you’d come in.”
Austin tilted his head. “Why is that?”
“Well, of course as Mr. Jones’s sole heir his checking and savings accounts were transferred to you, but there’s also a safety-deposit box that you should check for important papers or items.”
“I found the key today actually. Can I get into it?”
“Absolutely. Everything goes to you. Strangely, your father paid the fee on the account for the next five years.”
Austin exchanged a look with Sonya. “That was very generous of him.”
Or a devious plan. Pay the bill to keep Austin from receiving one and discovering the box, find the key, and make sure Austin never saw what was inside the box.
Mr. Foster frowned. “Well, he wanted to access the box.”
“Did you let him?”
Mr. Foster furiously shook his head. “Absolutely not. Only you sign on it now.”
So his father couldn’t get in it, but keeping Austin out of it served his purpose. Which meant his father knew what was in the box.
Sonya pressed her lips together and eyed the banker. “Was Mr. Hubbard upset you wouldn’t let him in the box?”
Mr. Foster’s lips pressed flat. “He was . . . displeased.”
“I’ll bet.” Austin had been on the receiving end of his father’s displeasure all too often this past year. “I’d like to get into the box.”
“This way.” Mr. Foster waved his hand toward a high gate that led to the huge vault.
“Did Austin’s father ask about anything besides the box?”
Mr. Foster unlocked the security door. Sonya entered the vault ahead of him.
Mr. Foster closed the gate behind them. “He asked if Austin had looked into his accounts.”
Austin slipped his key into the lock on box 42. The banker inserted the master key.
Sonya leaned against the small table in the center of the vault. “After we finish with the box, can you pull up all accounts, opened or closed, in Austin’s and his grandfather’s names?”
Austin pulled the small box out of the wall and set it on the table next to Sonya. “We have the statements,” he pointed out.
“I’d just like to see what the bank has on record, so we know we haven’t missed anything.” As a forensic accountant, Sonya’s job meant digging deep into financial records. He liked that she was thorough, though he didn’t think they’d find anything more than they already knew.
“I’d be happy to pull the records while you inspect the box.” Mr. Foster went to the gate. “Take your time. When you’ve finished, I’ll return to let you out and we’ll discuss the accounts.” Mr. Foster exited, giving them their privacy.
Austin unlatched the lid but hesitated and glanced at Sonya. “Whatever is in this box, my father wants it.”
Sonya laid her hand on his arm, giving him the much-needed comfort and warmth he always craved from her. “Your grandfather hid so many things in the house to protect them. Whatever this is, he needed the added protection of a signature card and vault.”
Austin eyed her. “Great. Thanks. That put my mind at ease.”
Sonya squeezed his arm. “He wanted to protect you. He left you everything, knowing he could trust you to take care of it. For all we know, he put the matches from his favorite matchbox in there.”
A laugh bubbled up his gut. “Let’s hope he hadn’t gone that crazy.”
“You’ll never know unless you open the box.”
Austin sucked in a breath and held it. He opened the lid, stared at the innocuous papers, and exhaled.
Sonya didn’t hesitate to pull them out and spread them open on the table.
Austin stared down at the deed to the ranch with Great-granddad’s name. The brittle paper had faded over time, but it was quite a piece of history going back to when the west was settled.
“That matches the copy I got at the courthouse.” Sonya tapped the next paper. “That one matches the property transfer to your grandfather when his parents passed away.” She pulled the other paper closer. “This is the transfer of land to your father and mother.”
“Their wedding gift from Grandpa.”
“I pulled this record, too, but there’s an attachment to the original I didn’t get at the courthouse.”
Austin read the contract and swore. “This is what my father stole.”
“I don’t get it. The land was given to your mother and father. Why did they need a contract?”
“Because my grandfather retained the mineral rights on the land. For me.” He pointed to the contract. “. . . Alan Jones owner, or in the event of owner’s death, divided equally by all children born to Annie Jones Hubbard.”
“He never left the mineral rights to your mother. He always meant for them to go to you.”
Austin rubbed at the back of his neck. “Because he didn’t trust my father. And that proved right when my father started mining and kept the money.”
“So you actually own all the sapphires Blue Mining found and sold.”
Austin pointed to another contract. “This is a five-year lease. I own everything he dug up after this lease expired.”
“Your grandfather wanted to give your father and mother a good start. Just like his father got when he found that first sapphire. He thought your father would find enough gems to give them a good life.”
“But my father wasn’t satisfied with enough money to make sure they’d never want for anything. He kept digging. He kept taking.”
“Your grandfather wanted the mineral rights to go to your mother’s children so they could do the same thing, pull from the land what they needed.”
“A legacy that would spread across generations. I see now what my grandfather was trying to tell me. He used to say, ‘Wanting more than you need can lead a man to ruin.’”
“Your grandfather filled the house and surrounded himself with more stuff than he needed.” Sonya made the point that his grandfather knew what he was talking about.
Austin nodded. “My father chose wealth over his family. Without family, there’s no love. Without love, you’ve got nothing.”
Austin had learned that lesson well this past year. He’d had nothing. Then Sonya came into his life and made it worth living with an exuberance he’d never experienced because he was truly happy now.
He raked his fingers through his hair. “So my father didn’t want me to find this because I could take his company and nearly all his wealth from him.”
“Why didn’t your grandfather put a stop to this years ago?”
“Probably because of my mother. As long as she was married to my father, Granddad didn’t rock the boat. Maybe he even used this to keep my father in line.” Austin rubbed two fingers over his brow. “Their marriage was tumultuous. If my mother ever decided to leave my father, I have no doubt Granddad would have given her this and let her take everything from my father in the divorce. When my mother died, my father and Granddad had several heated arguments over many days. I never knew about what. I was too caught up in my grief to really care. My guess is that Granddad wanted to tell me about this. My father persuaded—threatened is probably more accurate—Granddad to let it go. I worked for the company already. I’m my mother’s only child. I’ll inherit everything anyway.”
Sonya laid her hand on his arm. “Except if your father has another child. If you didn’t find these documents, he could have left everything to that child if you didn’t claim what was rightfully yours.”
“Which explains why he didn’t want me to see these papers and he’s trying to have another child. And it would have been all the better if that child was mine and rightfully heir to this.” Austin tipped his head back, stared at the ceiling, and swore.
“It makes sense. He could simply bypass you and leave everything to his grandchild the way your grandfather left everything to you instead of your mother.”
“As long as I didn’t discover his deception.” Austin slammed his fist down on the papers.
“Why not just let you share in the business and the wealth? Why go through all this? Disowning you. Kicking you out of the company. Insisting you sell the land to him. The land isn’t as important as you discovering nearly everything your father has made belongs to you.”
“He hoped to take over the property and gain the mineral rights and keep digging. Great-granddad found a huge sapphire. It’s reasonable to assume there are more. If my dad got the land, he’d get the chance to be even richer. He’d keep me from finding the key that opened this Pandora’s box.”
“What are you going to do?”
“He’s put me in the same position my grandfather was in. I don’t have the money to hire an attorney to fight him.”
“With this information, an attorney will do the work, knowing they’ll get paid when you win. You could even use the property as collateral for a loan.” She held his gaze. “Austin, technically, you’re rich.”
Austin planted his hands on the counter and hung his head. “I’m so tired of fighting with him.” He turned his head and stared at her, the heaviness in his heart too much to carry. “None of this was necessary. If he or Granddad had simply told me I owned the mineral rights, I’d have come to a reasonable agreement with my father. He did the work. He built the company. But it was still my legacy.” Austin pushed off the counter and fisted his hands, letting the anger rise again. “Greedy bastard. He had to have it all. The business. The money. The woman he thought I loved.”
“He’s jealous.”
“Right.” Austin rolled his eyes and huffed out a frustrated breath. “For the past year, I’ve had exactly nothing.”
“That’s not true, Austin. You’ve always had everything.”
The words hit him hard, but the reality of it overwhelmed him. What did he do with the fact that he was wealthy beyond imagination on paper, but his life hadn’t reflected that, especially this past year?
“You had your mother’s love. Your granddad’s devotion. Kelly’s adoration. And everything your father’s worked for really belongs to you. He kept it because of your grandfather’s generosity and your mother’s belief that her husband had your best interest in mind and you’d receive the benefit of all his hard work. Maybe it was your mother’s letter, or the troubled marriage your mother couldn’t hide from your grandfather, or that your grandfather knew he didn’t have much time left to make things right, but something prompted him to go to your father on your behalf.”
“Nothing changed after they argued. My grandfather didn’t make my father give it all back to me.”
“No. He left you this.” Sonya held her hands up and over the papers. “For whatever reason, he couldn’t fight your father, but he knew you would.”
“Everything in me wants to take him down.” He’d have the money to run the ranch without Roxy’s help. He could provide for himself and Sonya.
They could have a life like nothing she’d ever experienced.
He’d had dreams of traveling. He’d like to tour Europe and especially Italy. He’d love to go to Mardi Gras and eat Louisiana gumbo. He’d never been to a big city. Maybe Sonya would like to visit New York or San Francisco.
They’d never have to worry about money.
Now that he knew what his father had done, how petty a reason he had for pushing Austin out of his life and treating him like shit, could they repair their relationship?
Would his father even want that?
Or would his father follow pattern and lash out? The fight had been his doing, not Austin’s. His father only knew how to take. But he’d have to give if they even had a chance of fixing this.
Austin couldn’t find any optimism that would happen. Not when it seemed beyond repair.
“Austin? What’s wrong?”
“If I take back what’s mine, then what? I push my father out of the company and run it myself? I’m not sure that’s what I want to do. I like what I’ve got going now. My own ranch. A life I put together the way I want it.” He cupped her face. “You.” He kissed her, needing the connection they shared to settle him. “I want a future that isn’t about the things I have but the people who make me happy and a life worth living and enjoying.” Sometime over the last year he’d fundamentally changed. Money didn’t mean as much to him as the people in his life. Friends like Noah, who had stood by his side. And Roxy, who took a chance on him.
Sonya, who saw potential in a broken man.
With no evidence that he could do it, she believed in him. He wanted to be the man she saw in him. The man she deserved.
And he wanted to give her everything.
Sonya hooked her hands over his wrists at her shoulders. “Before you talk to your father, I have a few more things I want to research. Let’s go chat with Mr. Foster about the accounts.” Sonya pressed her lips to his, not quick, but lingering for a few seconds to let him absorb her closeness. She fell back on her heels, gave him a reassuring smile, then gathered up the papers and handed them to him.
He tried to focus on what they needed to do and not giving in to his desire to pull her back into his arms. “What more are you looking for?”
“You’re the one who knew about the mineral rights. I would have never thought about that when selling a piece of land. When I pulled the property records, I thought that was all the information. It wasn’t. All I know is follow the money and you’ll find the truth about how much someone is hiding.”
Austin put the empty box back and locked it up. He waved to Mr. Foster to let them out of the vault.
“All finished, then. I’ve pulled the records for Alan Jones and Austin. Let’s go to my office and review them.”
They followed the bank manager and sat in front of his desk.
Mr. Foster turned the computer monitor toward them. “These are Alan Jones’s accounts. Checking, savings, and the box. The financial accounts were closed by Austin.” Mr. Foster clicked a few tabs and typed in Austin’s name to bring up his accounts. “As you can see, Austin has an open checking and credit line account with the bank in his name only.”
“I wish the numbers were flopped on the accounts and I had the amount I owe on the credit line in the checking account.” He hated seeing that dismal amount in his checking account.
Mr. Foster pointed to the other checking account. “This is the account Roxy Cordero set up for the business partnership. Austin signs on it, along with you, Sonya. I assume you are this Sonya.”
Sonya nodded. “That’s right. What’s that other savings account?” Sonya pointed to another block on the screen.
Mr. Foster clicked the account number and pulled up the information. “Strange. This is a custodial account. It should have been changed over to Austin on his eighteenth birthday. His parents are the custodians.” Mr. Foster glanced at Austin. “I apologize for the oversight.”
“No worries. Looks like there’s a couple grand in the account.” That would help him pay his credit card bill this month.
“I can change the account to your personal savings, or transfer the balance to your checking account.”
“Hold on.” Sonya held up her hand. “Can we see the activity on the account?”
Mr. Foster clicked on the statement tab. “There’s been no recent activity.”
Sonya pointed to the statement links going back years. “I want to see the opening statement.”
Mr. Foster obliged.
The statement came up on the screen and Austin had to lean forward to be sure he saw the original deposit amount correctly. “Is that right?”
Mr. Foster adjusted his glasses and stared at the amount. “Yes.”
“I started with one hundred and fifty grand and ended up with only about two grand. Where did the money go?”
Mr. Foster pulled up one statement after the next until they saw the withdrawal for all but fifteen hundred dollars. The account had been earning interest, which brought the balance up very slowly over the last twenty-plus years.
“Can you determine if the money was transferred to another account?” Sonya pulled a slip of paper and a pen from her purse and wrote down the amount and date of the transaction.
“The fee below the withdrawal amount indicates to me the money was paid out by cashier’s check. This happened quite a long time ago. I’m not sure we have the records for who the cashier’s check was made out to, but the money could only have been withdrawn by—”
“My father.”
“Or your mother as custodians,” Mr. Foster confirmed. “The thing is, once the money is put in a custodial account, the money irrevocably belongs to the child. A custodian can only withdraw money for you, the minor, for your direct benefit. They can’t use it for themselves, say to buy a car.”
Sonya turned to him. “The letter. What your father stole.”
Austin nodded. “He took the money my grandfather put in my name to start the mining business.”
Mr. Foster leaned forward. “Unless you own the business or a reasonable share of it, you have a case for him raiding your custodial account.”
Austin clenched his fists. “My dad doesn’t share, he takes.”
Sonya shook her head. “Based on my research, he’d been mining his land long before this withdrawal. My guess, he didn’t hit the mother lode he’d expected, so he bought the surrounding land.” Sonya came to the same conclusion as Austin.
“In the early days I worked for the company, I remember him telling me the new land produced far more than he ever got from the original mining operation.” That’s when his father actually shared things with Austin.
Mr. Foster chimed in again. “Most of what he originally mined probably went right back into the business.”
Austin had worked for his father as a teenager as his father drew him slowly into the business. But when he finished school and went to work full-time, he’d gone through some of the records to see where they’d found the biggest sapphire deposits, thinking it might be worth going back to those sites and looking for more. “He hit the big score on the new property about a year into mining the new land. Almost a year after he took the money from my account.”
“Land that he bought with your money.” Sonya stared at him, silently asking what he wanted to do next.
Austin never expected to find all this, his father’s betrayal spelled out in land deeds, mineral rights, and bank accounts. “Can you make me copies of the records, please?”
Mr. Foster nodded, turned the monitor back to face him, and typed on the keyboard. The printer spit out pages of information that documented his father’s theft and betrayal.
Mr. Foster peeked over his glasses and frowned. “I’ve found the original transfer of the one-fifty from your grandfather’s savings account to the custodial account in your name as well. I’ll include that for you.”
“Thank you for all your help.” Sonya stood and put her hand on Austin’s shoulder. “The courthouse is a couple blocks up. I’m going to head up there and get the records for the purchase of that land.”
He took her hand and held her still. “I don’t want you going anywhere alone.” He didn’t want anything to happen to her like the last time. “What if he’s still having you followed?”
Mr. Foster handed over the copies. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Transfer the money from the custodial account to Austin’s checking account and close it out.”
Austin had already forgotten about that. His mind swirled with thoughts about what his father had done and what Austin should do now.
“Of course. Austin, if you’ll give me a moment to complete the transaction and get your signature, I’ll have you out of here in a few minutes.” Mr. Foster went to work on his computer again.
Austin stared up at Sonya. “Wait for me.”
She cupped his cheek and rubbed her thumb over his skin. “You can’t let him get away with this. Your grandfather wanted that money to go to you.”
He nodded and hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “I’ll take care of it.”
This meant another confrontation with his father. The upcoming battle would be nothing compared to what he’d already endured listening to his father’s harsh words and put-downs. Walter wouldn’t go down without a fight.
If nothing else, he wanted his father to know that Austin knew what he’d done: cheating, stealing, and deceiving his only child.
He could forgive, but he’d never forget and allow his father to affect him the way he had this past year.
Austin was done taking it. For once, his father was going to know what it felt like to be at the mercy of someone who could take everything from him.