Chapter 6: This Goes Further Than You Think
The number belonged to Robert.
Patricia confirmed it by the following morning through her contacts.
He had used a secondary phone — a cheap one, the kind bought with cash — but the message had been sent from a cell tower two streets from his home address, and that was enough.
"He's frightened," Patricia said when she called me.
"Frightened people make mistakes.
This message is a mistake."
"It's also a threat."
"Yes.
Which means we now have something additional to work with." She paused.
"I've sent the letter of notice.
He will have received it this morning.
I want you to be prepared for him to contact you directly."
"I won't respond."
"Good.
If he contacts your sister, she shouldn't respond either.
If he contacts your children's school, their other parent, anyone in your immediate circle — I need to know immediately."
I thought about Rebecca's face in the garden doorway the night before.
Samuel pressing his forehead against the car window.
"Understood," I said.
Robert didn't wait long.
He appeared at my father's house that afternoon.
I knew because Diane had a friend two doors down who called her when Robert's car pulled up.
Diane called me.
I was already in the car.
I parked outside the house and walked up the path.
Robert was in the front room with my father.
My mother was standing near the door to the kitchen, holding a dish towel she wasn't using.
When I walked in, Robert turned around.
He looked different from the garden.
The cake was gone, obviously.
But so was the performance.
The easy contempt he'd worn all afternoon at the party had been replaced by something tighter.
"You want to sit down and talk like adults?" he said.
"I'm fine standing."
"Marcus." My father's voice.
He was in the armchair by the window, and he looked smaller than I remembered him looking yesterday.
"Robert just wants to explain the situation.
There's been a misunderstanding."
"There hasn't been a misunderstanding, Dad."
Robert stepped forward.
"Look.
I know how this looks.
The transfers, the business — I know it looks bad.
But your father and I had an agreement.
A genuine partnership.
The development was real.
The market turned.
That happens."
"The subsidiary that held the development site was dissolved eighteen months ago," I said.
"The assets listed against it in the filings were never real.
My solicitor has reviewed the documents."
Robert's jaw tightened.
"Your solicitor has reviewed incomplete information."
"Then give us the complete information.
In writing.
To Patricia Okafor's office.
By Friday."
"I'm not sending anything to a solicitor."
"Then we proceed with what we have."
My father stood up.
"Marcus.
Please.
Robert is family.
We can sort this out between us.
If you bring solicitors into it — if this becomes official — "
"It's already official, Dad." I looked at him.
Really looked.
He was seventy-one years old and he was standing in his own front room asking me to protect the man who had taken six years of my money.
"It became official the moment you signed a partnership agreement with Robert using a house I helped pay for.
Without telling me.
Without telling Diane."
My mother made a small sound from the kitchen doorway.
"Helen didn't know about the agreement," Robert said quickly.
"That was between your father and me."
"I'm aware."
Something shifted in my father's face.
He sat back down.
Robert changed tack.
He moved closer, lowered his voice, as though the room had suddenly become private between the two of us.
"I can pay it back," he said.
"Not all at once.
But I can set up a repayment schedule.
We keep this quiet.
No solicitors.
No authorities.
You get your money back over time, and nobody's life gets destroyed over a business that went wrong."
"You called me from a burner phone yesterday and told me to back off."
His expression didn't move.
"That's not a foundation for a quiet arrangement," I said.
"Marcus — "
"I'm leaving now." I looked at my father one more time.
"If you want to cooperate with Patricia's office, that will be taken into account.
If you don't, that will also be taken into account."
I walked to the door.
Robert's voice came from behind me, quiet and flat.
"You think you're the only one with documents?"
I stopped.
I turned around.
He was standing in the center of the room with his arms at his sides, and for the first time he looked like he meant something he was saying.
"What documents?" I said.
He smiled.
Just slightly.
"Come back tomorrow.
May you like
Alone.
And I'll show you."
