Chapter 19 - MARGARET’S LAST CARD
I met Margaret behind glass at the county jail.
She looked older, but no less arrogant.
“You look tired,” she said.
“You look incarcerated.”
Her mouth tightened.
I had not come to be polite.
“What did my father miss?”
Margaret leaned closer.
“Peter Walsh didn’t lose twenty-two thousand,” she said. “He lost eighty.”
“Ryan took twenty-two. Who took the rest?”
“Alan.”
That made sense.
Ryan had been the young employee Alan could hide behind. Ryan stole, but Alan stole more.
Margaret knew.
“How?”
“Because I found the statements years ago.”
“And you protected them.”
“I protected my son.”
“You protected the man who taught him how to steal.”
She looked away.
For a second, shame flickered.
“Your father discovered part of it,” she said. “That’s why Alan hated him.”
“Did Alan hurt my father?”
“No.”
Too quickly.
My father died of pancreatic cancer. I refused to let her turn that into another mystery.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she asked.
“Don’t throw poison into every memory because you’re losing control of the story.”
Her face went still.
I continued.
“My father died sick. Peter died in an accident. You don’t get to turn every dead man into another weapon.”
Margaret had no answer.
She slid me a bank archive reference.
“Give that to the prosecutor. It proves Alan’s larger theft.”
“Why help now?”
“He was supposed to protect Ryan. He protected himself.”
Even now, loyalty meant revenge.
I stood.
“Lauren,” she said.
“You think you won because you kept Emma.”
My hands curled.
She smiled faintly.
“But one day she’ll ask why her father isn’t there.”
I walked back to the glass.
“She’ll know the truth.”
“You’d tell a child all this?”
“I’ll tell her the amount of truth she’s old enough to carry.”
Then I left her with consequences.
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The archive number connected Alan to Peter’s missing money.
It also revealed a final $20,000 transfer to an account in my father’s name.
