Page 176 of Property of Bob

I touched his back. “I’m okay.”

He stayed there another second before stepping aside.

Wade blew out a breath. “I fucked up.”

“No argument here,” I said.

“I panicked.”

“Why?”

His eyes dropped. For the first time since we’d walked out there, Wade didn’t seem nervous about the Kings. He looked ashamed. “I needed the money.”

“You owned a campground.”

“My parents owned the campground,” he corrected. “When my dad died, Mom kept half, gave me the other half, and I’m in charge of the day-to-day. You saw the books. You know how much money that place actually makes.”

“Enough that you shouldn’t have been stealing from it.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

His mouth opened. Closed. He looked toward his truck.

For a second, I thought he wasn’t going to answer, then he reached into his back pocket.

Bob tensed.

Wade froze.

“I’m just going to grab my wallet,” he called.

Bob stared at him. “Slow.”

Wade pulled it out slowly. He opened it and took out a picture. He held it toward me.

I looked at Bob, and he nodded once.

I stepped forward and took it. A girl smiled up at me. Maybe thirteen. She had long brown hair and braces. She was sitting on a dock with her feet in the water and holding up a fish that couldn’t have been more than six inches long like she’d just landed a shark.

“That’s Ellie,” Wade said.

I looked up.

“My daughter.”

I hadn’t known Wade had a daughter. He’d never talked much about his family.

“She got sick two years ago.” Something in his voice made my stomach twist.

“What kind of sick?”

“Leukemia.”

All of the anger inside me didn’t disappear, but it shifted.

Wade stared at the picture in my hand. “Her mom and I haven’t been together since Ellie was four. She lives with her mother most of the time. Insurance covered a lot, but not everything. Travel. Hotels. Medications. Specialist visits. Time off work. Then there were treatments they wanted to try that insurance fought us on.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I started taking money from the campground.” He paused. “Twenty-eight thousand.”