What She Gave Away (Santa Barbara Suspense Book 1) Read online

  “I’ll go get him. He’s usually right on time.”

  She disappears, and I whip out my notebook and practice my new pen name.

  Crystal Love Crystal Love Crystal Love.

  Behind George stands an unfamiliar man with a stern face. He’s in his midforties and wears the standard bank uniform: white shirt, blue tie, and a gray suit. His head is shaved and his body chiseled. Tan skin but not a wrinkle in sight. Must have Italian blood. He’s handsome in that stern professor kind of way, which would make him a good character for my novel. Not the lover, of course. My lover is much younger. But someone serious. Maybe the father? Or an uncle? Or the bad guy? Are there bad guys in a romance novel? I’ll have to check on that. I glance at my watch. It’s after four. I hope this doesn’t take too long.

  “Thank you for coming,” George says.

  George has always been gracious. I never liked it when Rich made fun of his eye. “It’s good to see you again, George.”

  “I’m sorry we made you wait. Please take a seat.”

  I perch myself on the edge of the chair with my purse upright in my lap. I want them to think I’m in a hurry and have somewhere important to go. George takes a seat at his desk, but the stern man remains standing, peering at himself in that awful mirror hanging right behind George’s head.

  “That was a wonderful memorial service,” George says.

  “Thank you.” It really was.

  “Would you like some coffee or water?”

  “I don’t think so. Will this take long?”

  “I’m not sure. Typically the head of compliance handles these types of interviews, but she’s out on a leave of absence.”

  Interview? He makes this sound so formal. I catch the stern man peering at me in the mirror. I begin to fidget with my purse.

  George works his manicured hands together. “I’d like to introduce you to Special Agent Aaron Sykes. He’s with FinCen, the FBI’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.”

  FBI? My heart skips a beat.

  Sykes turns to face me but doesn’t offer his hand. “Please be patient. I have a lot to go over.”

  “You do?”

  “Just stay calm, Kathi,” George says. “We need to ask you a few questions to get an understanding of the situation.”

  “Situation?”

  Sykes jumps in. “I’ll take over from here.”

  “Be my guest.” A bead of sweat slips from George’s forehead and slides the length of his face.

  “What do you know about your husband’s work at the bank?”

  “Not much,” I say in a tiny voice.

  Sykes glares at me like I’m a criminal. “You were married to him for close to thirty years. You must know something.”

  I try to compose my thoughts. “I know very little except that he was the president. And a founder. He rarely talked about what he did day to day.”

  “What about during this past year? Any talk about special loans?”

  “No . . .”

  “Problems at work?”

  “Problems?”

  “Did he mention that he was under investigation?”

  “Why, no.” The blood rushes to my head. “Whatever for?”

  “How about the two-million-dollar home equity loan? Any idea where those loan funds went?”

  I shake my head. “I barely remember signing the documents.”

  “One million of that was a refi,” George says.

  “Let Mrs. Wright answer the questions,” Sykes snaps.

  George’s lips grow thin. “Of course.”

  I look from George to Sykes. I don’t like the tension in the room. “Rich was always having me sign things,” I say. “I never read them. I just did what he asked.”

  “Really?” Sykes says. “So I suppose you don’t remember signing a falsified loan application.”

  “Falsified?” I struggle to my feet. “I think I should go.”

  “I have a few more questions.”

  I glance at George, and he nods. I sink back down in my chair.

  “Now then.” Sykes peers at the notes in his hand. “Can you explain the contents of your safe deposit box?”

  “My what?”

  “Your box? Your safe deposit box? Number 101? The one you have here at the bank?”

  “I don’t know anything about a box.”

  Sykes gives George a quick tap on the shoulder. George shoots the man an irritated look before turning to me. “I know you’ve been going through a rough time, Kathi. And sometimes things can slip your mind. But you and Rich have had a box here since the bank opened its doors.”

  “Yes, well . . . maybe.” I try to rack my brain, but my thoughts have grown fuzzy. “Maybe we do. I really don’t remember. But if you say so, it must be true.”

  Sykes folds his arms. “So you never used the box?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Never visited it during the past year?”

  “No.”

  He pulls a sheet of paper from his briefcase and hands it to George. George unfolds it and pushes it toward me.

  “Is that your signature?” Sykes asks.

  I nod.

  “Do you see the date?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  Sykes leans over George and digs his eyes into mine. “According to the records, you accessed the box at nine a.m. on March 14, 2016. Does that date mean anything to you?”

  “Of course.” I swipe at the tears blurring my eyes.

  “So you acknowledge you accessed your box the morning of your husband’s death.”

  “No, I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”

  “Are you aware it’s against the law to keep money in your box?”

  “There was money?”

  “Two hundred thousand, to be exact.”

  “But that’s crazy. It’s so much. How did it get there?”

  “Why don’t you explain that to me?”

  “But how can I? I don’t know anything.” My heart races, and I can’t catch my breath. “I’m not feeling well. Can I leave?”

  Sykes shrugs. “I suppose that’s enough for now.” He slides his business card my way. “If anything comes to you, please give me a call.”

  I stare at the card and then look at George. “Do I need a lawyer?”

  He sighs, his glass eye twitching. “Yes, I think that would be for the best.”

  When I return home from the bank, I try calling Rich’s lawyer. But of course, it’s after five, and lazy Leo is gone. I don’t mean that. It’s the wine talking. Leo’s not lazy. He swims at the club after work. I know that because Rich spent many evenings there, too, working on his perfect body each and every day. Running in the morning. Swimming at night. Biking on Saturday and Sunday. God forbid he miss a single workout and spend a few hours with his family. Oh, Rich. Dear Rich. What in god’s name have you done?

  I head for the kitchen and trip on a stray shoe. My wine sprays across the white couch. Rich always warned me there’d come a day when one glass wouldn’t be enough, that I’d move on to two or even three. Well, I’ve fooled him this time. It’s not three glasses. It’s four.

  I slosh around the house, knocking into furniture and walls. Where to go? What to do? Call Jane? Call Laurie? I can’t. I just can’t. I don’t want anyone to know. I bumble up the steps and mill around upstairs until I find myself in Jack’s room and fall across the bed. His room hasn’t changed since he left for college, except for the red-and-gold USC banner hanging on the wall. University of Spoiled Children. That’s what we called it when I was in college a hundred years ago. And that’s what Jack’s become. A horribly spoiled child who won’t speak to his mom.

  I was a good mom. Possibly a great mom. I’m sure of that, I think. I feel dizzy. I feel sick. I try to focus on Jack’s swimming trophies grouped by year on his bookshelves. The housekeepers polish them each and every week until they gleam. All those years I spent shuttling Jack to swim meets. Bakersfield, Fresno, San Diego. And then when he got better, Arizona,
Florida, New York. I was the proud mom. I couldn’t help but gloat. And then whoosh. A scholarship to college. A failed attempt at the Olympic Trials. He got out of the pool that day and never stepped back in. He wiped his hands of his sport just like he’s wiping his hands of his mom. Now that he has the bittiest part in the bittiest TV series, he thinks he can toss me away. His father would be so disappointed. Tears slip down my cheeks, and I wipe them away.

  I picture Jack as a baby, all wet and happy in my arms. He used to love his bath, used to giggle and laugh until tears streamed from his sparkling blue eyes. Oh, why can’t babies stay babies? Why didn’t I have a few more? I swipe at the tears again. Don’t think about that. Just call him. Yes, call him. He can’t mean what he said. He wasn’t thinking clearly. I fumble my cell from my pocket and scroll through his text messages and stop on three words.

  HOW COULD YOU?

  How could I? Why don’t you ask your father? He was the boss of me, then and now. The blood pumps loud in my ears, and I begin to sweat. What did that cardiologist say at the Go Red luncheon? More women die from heart attacks than cancer. Maybe that’s what’s happening to me. Maybe I’m having a heart attack. Maybe I’ll die. That would show Jack. That would make him feel bad.

  I’ll text him. Yes, a text is better. My heart begins to calm down.

  PLEASE CALL ME, I type. IT’S AN ENERGY.

  I hit send and then stare at the words.

  EMERGENCY, I retype.

  He hates all caps, but I’m only mimicking his bad behavior. I wait on his bed for the call, the phone resting against my chest, the light draining from the room. I should eat dinner, but I’m too tired to get up. How do I know if my text has been blocked? He swore he’d do that. Did he follow through? Would my message come back? Would my phone let me know? Call me. Jack. Call me. Call me. Call me, please. I’ll have to find out about blocking. I’ll google it tomorrow.

  It’s dark now. I close my eyes, and the buzzing simmers down. I rub my hands across my hip bones and smile. The upside is that I’m thin and getting thinner. What could be better than that?

  December 1, 1979

  Mom died a year ago now. Dad died that night too. I’ve read things get better with time, but I’m nearly always sad. Aunt Genny thinks it might help if I write my feelings in a journal. I’m not sure writing will make any difference, but I promised I would give it a try.

  The sheriff said it was the black ice that killed them. That the wheels were old and worn. I’m guessing he was right because Mom and Dad always argued over that ugly old van. Mom said we needed something safer, but Dad said VWs were the best. At the funeral I heard Aunt Genny call Dad a penny-pincher. I’ve never heard her say a bad word since.

  The psychologist says what happened wasn’t my fault, but deep down I know it was. A few days before the accident I got into my biggest fight ever with Mom. I mean, thirteen and they still treated me like a baby? Wouldn’t let me go to sleepovers. Couldn’t get my ears pierced. And the sitters were the worst. Mom and Dad never let me stay home alone. Mom said it was because I was their one and only. I said I didn’t care. I yelled some horrible things that night, so Dad sent me to my room. A few days later they surprised me and left me on my own.

  I was reading Gone with the Wind when the sheriff showed up. It was the third time I’d read it that year. I used to love most everything about that novel. I’d climb inside the words and let them sweep me into another world. Loved everything except for the so-so-sad ending. That’s why I read it over and over. I kept wishing the ending would change. That Rhett would stay with Scarlett. That Bonnie wouldn’t fall off her pony. That they would love each other and have lots of babies and live happily ever after. Of course now I know I can wish all I want, but endings never change.

  Crystal

  April 3, 2015

  I’ve rented a small studio near downtown Santa Barbara. Studio makes it sound too nice. It’s actually a converted garage with old appliances and a sloped floor. All that luxury for $2,000 a month plus utilities. It’s crazy money—almost half of my take-home pay—but this town is crazy. For the same amount of money, I could rent a three-bedroom house in Bakersfield. With a pool. But I shouldn’t complain. With a vacancy rate under 1 percent, I was lucky to nab the place.

  My landlord lives next door in a rustic Craftsman with crumbling steps and a rotting porch. The drought-stricken lawn is scorched to amber; a sagging picket fence borders the yard. The only touch of color is a red bougainvillea that consumes one side of the house. A family of rats lives in the middle of all those thorny spines. Big ugly ones with long yellow teeth. I’ve seen them lurking in the early morning when I leave my studio for work.

  Just for fun, I looked up the house price on Zillow. A whopping $900,000. Are they crazy? Close to a million for this dump? How any normal person can live in Santa Barbara I just don’t understand.

  My landlord, Martha, is older than my faux granny by a decade, but her brain’s still intact. No family, as far as I can tell. The house overflows with old textbooks, magazines, and newspapers, and the air’s thick and musty with mold. Martha says she taught high school history for decades until the school district forced her to retire. She’s lonely, I can tell, but I’m not looking for a friend. I don’t ask her any questions and keep my answers short.

  “I’ll have you fill out an application,” she said on the day I toured the room. “But I have some tough questions for you first. I don’t use a management group, so I can’t run credit checks. You’ll just have to promise to tell me the truth.”

  “Of course.”

  “If you lie to me, I’ll see it on your face. After teaching fifty years, I’ve honed my sixth sense.”

  I nodded and pasted on a smile.

  “Married?”

  “No.”

  “Children?”

  “No.”

  “Dating?”

  “No.”

  She stepped closer, and I flinched at her old-lady stink. “I don’t want men around here,” she said. “Understand me? I’m very old-fashioned that way.”

  I stepped back. “You won’t have to worry about me.”

  “Credit clean?”

  “Close to eight hundred.”

  “Ever arrested?”

  “No.”

  “Committed a felony?”

  “No.”

  “Spent time in jail?”

  “No.” At least not as an adult.

  “Hmmm. What else.”

  I didn’t like being grilled one damn bit. Reminded me of the inquisition that had sent me to juvie. I wanted to tell Martha where she could go, but I needed the place, so I kept my mouth shut and played a round of my favorite game. Stroke? Broken hip? Dementia? Or did eviction top the list?

  As soon as I moved in, I scrubbed the place and painted it white. Then I unpacked my three trim boxes and arranged my sixteen true crime novels by the color of their spines. White sheets. Porcelain dishes. New silverware. One pot and one pan. Nothing on the walls. No TV. No computer. Clean and stark and perfect. So much better than my faux parents’ disaster of a home.

  Actually, home isn’t the right word. They had a disaster of a house. Not that they were poor—at least not in the beginning. But they hated their jobs and their marriage even more. The central battle of their private war became who should do the housework. Anna spent her free time shopping. Alan spent his sifting through porn. That left their one and only adoptee to clean the place as best as a little kid could.

  I tried. I really did. I picked up after the slobs morning, noon, and night. Still, the plates piled up and the garbage spilled over, and one day I finally gave up. I spent much of my ninth year huddled in a corner of the living room plucking strands of hair from my head.

  No knight in shining armor came for me like you see in the movies. No kind neighbor. No policeman. No teacher. No friend. And after the divorce? Anna didn’t want me, and neither did Alan. So Granny took me in and tried to make things right.

  At Grann
y’s, I grew mean and ugly and twisted, like a worm. My hunger grew boundless; junk food became my only friend. That was when the mind games started. At first I focused on the Disney girls who danced across the screen, hating their perfect faces, flawless bodies, and storybook families. One girl in particular drew the most loathing from me, a perky blonde with a winning smile and an endless supply of friends. How would she feel if someone slashed her face? Or stole her voice? Or hurt her parents? What was the worst? The very worst thing that could happen to ruin that girl’s life? Death seemed too easy. At least the quick deaths I saw on TV.

  After a while I got tired of pretending and started playing the game with Granny. Hid her favorite clothes—that made her confused. Tossed her wedding ring—that made her cry. And the fire? I hadn’t meant to hurt her, but of course that was what I did.

  I’ve finished with the decorating, and now I’m ready to begin. After I plow through a box of glazed donuts, I head to the library five blocks away from my studio. I may be big and heavy, but I don’t mind walking. Counting steps clears my head.

  The library is the perfect place to begin my research. Big and grand and impeccably organized, it gives me a sense of peace. I use my fake ID to get a library card and then vie for computer time with a batch of the town’s homeless.

  A girl taps my shoulder. “Are you new here?” she asks. She wears a frayed cap pulled tight over her head, and bits of blonde hair poke through the seams. She’s so tiny I think she’s a child until I spot the wrinkles around her eyes.

  “Nope.”

  “My name’s Mimi. What’s yours?”

  She smells like a bag of week-old trash. I wish her far away.

  “This is the nicest library, don’t you think? It’s my favorite place in the world.” Mimi claps her hands together and gets shushed by the security guard. “They don’t like us,” she says, dropping her voice. “But they can’t stop us from coming. We have rights too.”

  I grab my cell and peer close like something important has happened. “I’m busy,” I say, turning my back.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Mimi slinks off to the bathroom. Minutes later she’s jabbering with some homeless friend.

  When it’s finally my turn for a computer, I hunker down and get to work.