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The fear returned, making her sick to her stomach. “Peter, I’m alone out there. I have nothing. Jackson and I will be homeless.” Tears burned in her eyes. “I need you to come home and help me.”
“Just hang on a little longer.”
“‘Hang on’?” Anger and fear twisted themselves around each other. “‘Hang on’? That’s easy to say from in here. What do you have to do in a day, except wait for your next meal and call me collect? ‘Hang on’? This is all your fault. You did this to me, to us. We’re married. You’re not supposed to keep secrets and you’re not supposed to ruin our lives. This is on you. All of it.”
She had more to say—about how she’d never thought he was capable of committing a crime, but now she wasn’t sure, and how she was reduced to taking food from friends and asking his ex-wife for advice—but she couldn’t find the words. She was enraged, she was terrified, she was exhausted and every single part of her life was out of her control.
She stood and circled around the low table, then took Jackson from him.
“Allison, what are you doing? Don’t go, please. Don’t. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m going to fix this, I swear. I can make it right.”
She ignored the words and marched steadily to the exit. Another plane flew overhead.
When she reached the guard, she showed her ID. He glanced from his clipboard to her.
“Once you leave, there’s no coming back until your next visiting day.”
“That’s fine with me.”
She walked out, Jackson on her hip, the boy waving back at his father. Peter called out her name, but she didn’t turn around. After getting her small purse from the locker, she started the long walk to the light rail parking lot. It was only when she was in her car that she realized what she’d done. She’d let her temper get the better of her, and had walked out on her husband, leaving him alone. Worse, she hadn’t gotten a single answer—at least none she could use. She’d wasted gas, time and energy, and she was one day closer to the coming shitstorm. And there wasn’t a single thing she could do to stop it.
10
Gail, Peter’s office manager, had been difficult to pin down but Erica had finally convinced her to meet by bribing her with a free facial. Or, as Erica had put it, “We have some new products we’re using. I’d love to get your thoughts. Any interest in being a beta tester for us? Of course the facial will be complimentary.”
Gail had gone for it and was now seated in the small conference room at the back of the Bellevue store. The space was generally used for vendor meetings or discussions between management and employees. Or in this case, finding out what had happened at Peter’s office.
“You’re not working for Peter anymore?” she asked, pouring the other woman tea from a lovely porcelain pot she’d picked up at a charity auction. “When Allison went to the office, no one was there.”
“What’s the point of anyone going in? The feds took all the computers and trashed the place.” Gail, a fiftysomething with graying hair and absolutely no sense of style, sniffed. “I hear Hillary is trying to do some work from home, but she’s the only one. Everyone else left. I walked out the day they arrested him. I left a letter of resignation on his desk.”
“Which he never saw,” Erica murmured, wondering about the timing.
“That’s not my problem. He’s the one who broke the law. If you ask me, he got what was coming to him.”
Erica had always thought of Gail as efficient and hardworking. If she had to guess, she would have said the other woman respected her boss. Obviously she would have been wrong on that account.
“It was a shock to find out he’s in jail,” she said, her tone neutral. “At least to me. Were you surprised?”
Gail’s thin lips pressed together. “I had my suspicions about what he was doing. People would come to the office. They didn’t look right.”
“In what way?”
“They weren’t regular clients. They’d ask to see him, but wouldn’t give anyone the name of their business. They looked—” she leaned forward “—shady.”
Gail was starting to get on her nerves, but Erica told herself to be patient. She needed information and as of right now, Gail was her best option.
“That must have made you uncomfortable. You understand the business world.” Erica offered a warm smile. “You’ve been Peter’s right-hand person for over a decade. He’d be lost without you.”
Gail shifted on her seat. “Thank you. I always tried my best. I’ve been handling people’s books for over thirty years. I know what’s legal and what isn’t. He got into some things.” There was another pause. “It’s her fault.”
Her? What her? “Excuse me?”
“The wife. Everything changed when he married her. I don’t know what he sees in her. She’s useless. Did you know she works in a grocery store?”
There was something in Gail’s tone that set Erica’s teeth on edge. What was wrong with working in a grocery store? People needed jobs and it was honest work.
“She has no ambitions, no training for anything, but he didn’t care about that. She was young and pretty enough, if you like the type. One second he’d met her, the next they were married and she was popping out babies. That’s when it all changed. He got into things.”
