“He said...he said it was better to split up the payments. Better to balance the budget that way.”
His face is ashen as he sits back in the chair.
“How much? How much has he taken?”
“About three million.”
Axel makes a choking sound and puts his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. She knows it’s a lot. She probably hasn’t even found all of it. They could be surviving at this point. Pouring the extra money into advertising or something to gain business.But it’s gone, three million is a lot for a business to lose.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“There’s more.”
He drops his hands from his face to look at her, a pleading look in his eyes.
“It looks like you gave him one hundred thousand, which you have marked as an investment.”
He pulls the keyboard towards him.
“Yes, he said with the decline in business, we should invest some money in stocks. I have the account number here. Look, it corresponds to an account.”
She can hear the stress in his voice as she takes the keyboard back, searching for a website to view the account.
“Did he give you a login to the account? A way to access it?”
“He said it was growing, a two percent return.”
He looks forlorn, staring at the computer screen like it holds some answers. She knows she needs to tell him the rest.
“Also-”
“There’s more? Fuck.”
His head is back in his hands. Chloe rubs his arm gently, trying to comfort him while she delivers more blows.
“You said there was more land you owned, that the town sat on? I can’t find it.”
“What? What do you mean you can’t find it?” He looks over at her with a bit of a crazed look, she’s sure she would look worse if it were her hearing all of this.
“I can see the parcels of land you own, what the lodge sits on. But the ones you owned for the town look like it was sold about two years ago.”
His eyes are wide as he opens and shuts his mouth a few times, no words coming out. He reaches out suddenly to grab for the landline phone, and she has to stand and put her hands on his arm to stop him.
“I need to call him. I need...he can’t have done this. He’s an old man, Jack bakes him cookies for Christmas, for fucks sake. Gunner fixed a leak in his bathroom just last year.”
“You can’t call him, not yet. We need to try to find out more. Who those pieces of land were sold to? How did Maury even manage to sell anything without your signature?”
All the color drains from Axel’s face as he slumps back in his chair with a thump.
“He said...he said after my dad died so suddenly that it was a good idea to get a power of attorney. I didn’t think my brothers could handle running the business if something happened to me. He said it was common for accountants to be power of attorneys, that I would be protecting my family’s legacy in case of an accident.”
Chloe rubs his back. She knows what this means now. Maury not only had them pay extra and took the money, but he also took a fake hundred thousand dollar investment and sold Axel’s property without his consent.
He doesn’t cry. He sits there stoically pale, not shaking or yelling. His jaw is clenched so tight she wonders if his teeth will break. She’s not scared of him, even when he puts off this intense anger. She strokes his arm, back, neck, and head for a long timetill his shoulders relax a little. She would be a mess if it were her.
“Is there any recourse?”
“You need to call the police. They will file a report and begin to look into it. You also need to hire an attorney. Do you have one?” He shakes his head no. “You’ll need to hire one who deals with fraud and embezzlement. You also need to have the power of attorney revoked so he can’t do anything else.”
