If it wasn’ther, then all of this had, after all, been about Joe’s mother’s death and his father’s lies. But Joe was the one who wanted to know the truth about that. His abusive pen pal already did, or believed they did. So they had to want something else out of it.
Joe avoided his room and the quietly expectant computer and went into the small, well-appointed kitchenette to pick through the room-servicebreakfast he’d had no appetite for until now. The chilled orange juice and hot coffee had met in the middle and settled on tepid. The scrambled eggs had congealed. The granola was still granola, but once he’d ladled in the yogurt and fruit, he realized he still had no appetite for it. He pushed it away.
Most of the time, he had a knack for this sort of task. It was a useful talent for a troubleshooter.People were rarely glad to see you turn up at their business, but once you knew what to offer them, that changed.
He usually had something to work with. He had done his due diligence on the business and employees and, more importantly, he knew what he could and couldn’t do to get them what they wanted. All he knew about whoever sent him burned bears in the mail was that they were angry.
Whatwas Joe supposed to do about that? Back then he’d been a baby. He couldn’t influence what happened. And while hindsight was twenty-twenty, even if he had the full story, he didn’t know what he could do to fix anything now.
Take a leaf from Harry’s book and throw money at it.He poured himself a coffee.
He paused midpour, the french press dangling from his fingers as something finally clicked—thefile that Bea had given him the other day. Joe left the coffee to cool and stalked back into his bedroom.
Yesterday it seemed like a distraction. If it was important, he’d assumed, then once he found Abigail, she’d be able to explain why. But it turned out she didn’t know much more than him. That left this.
Joe unearthed the file from the drawer he’d tucked it into and emptied the contents ontothe bed. He impatiently spread them out over the heavy quilt until he found the stapled-together report from the latest survey on the property.
The address was printed on the top sheet in rounded, careful block capitals, underneath a low-res photograph of the house itself.
Maybe Joe didn’t know what his abusive pen pal wanted or imagined they were due, but for over twenty years, his father hadthought someone deserved this white-plastered suburban house with the small, aggressively neat lawn. In the same way that Harry had put a roof over his own son’s head, he’d made sure this family in Reading had room and board.
Maybe….
When Bea suggested it was guilt that motivated the regular-as-clockwork monthly deposits, Jack had dismissed it. He might have been wrong, although he thought Harry’sguilt wasn’t for what Bea thought it was. Maybe Harry and Abigail weren’t the only family the affair had split up.
He texted Cal—twice. Nervous energy propelled him around the suite four times between the first text and the last. When he didn’t hear back in ten minutes—his brain at odds between the bittersweet acknowledgment that Cal owed him nothing and the bitter grudge that Cal did owe himtransport—Joe called an Uber instead.
The app gave him twenty minutes. He left his phone on the coffee table, the app open to watch the cartoon car jerkily etch-a-sketch itself along the rendered streets, while he pulled a jacket on over his dark gray T-shirt and laced up his running shoes. When he checked his phone, the estimated time of arrival had jumped. He had five minutes to get down inthe elevator and through the hotel’s long, bare corridors. And still no text from Cal.
Joe went to text him again but thought better of it and swiped between windows so he could call Bea.
She must have been sitting on the phone. It barely got half a ring out before it cut to her sleep-husky face.
“Joseph,” she said, her voice soft. “What do you want?”
He let himself out of the suite and headedto the elevator. “That house in Reading,” he said. “Can you meet me there?”
There was a pause, and then she cleared her throat. “What? I don’t know what you mean. I… had a late night.”
Joe snorted. He could hear the shower in the background, and the off-key warble of someone singing along to Adele cut in and out of the call. It sounded like Bea’s night wasn’t over yet.
“The house in Readingthat the company bought,” he said. “I’m meant to be divesting us of all our UK holdings, including that one. So I need to have a look at it. Can you make that happen?”
“It’s the weekend,” she said.
“It’s important.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I’ll make it happen. You know where it is?”
Impatience flicked at Joe’s mood. He squashed it with the reminder that he had asked for a favor, a precariousone too, since he knew that the property was one that Harry had never expected him to find. He’d been given a list to work through, and Reading hadn’t been mentioned.
“I have the files you gave me,” he reminded Bea. “I’ll be there in an hour.”
The shower stopped, and Bea took a quick breath. “Me too,” she said. “Let me get out of here. I’ll meet you there.”
She hung up.
Joe shook his headand flicked to the Uber app so he could check the car while he pressed the Ground Floor button. He couldn’t judge. His first meeting with Bea had been delayed because of a shower, muscles, and a smirk.
