I bang into my office, ready to throw my things in a box and get the hell out of here as fast as possible.
But I stop in my tracks when I see a stranger sitting in one of the two chairs across from my desk. He’s an impeccably dressed older gentleman. I was always around wealth growing up, but over the last few years especially, I’ve learned to pay attention to the small details that differentiate true wealth from the cheap imitation of it.
So I recognize the elegant tailoring and fine cloth that indicate this man’s suit was custom made and expensive. And the fact that his cufflinks appear to be real gold, maybe an heirloom. Grandpa used to have some like that. The man’s black wingtips are polished and expensive. I always check men’s footwear when sizing up a potential client.
This guy is real money. The serious kind.
Too bad I didn’t pay more attention when Dad started wearing knock-off Louis Vuitton shoes a few years ago after Mom died. She’d left him years before but he was always stupid over her.
I knew he was struggling. I just thought it was personal—I never dreamed the business was in trouble, too. Once when I dropped by to check on him, I caught him at home, drunk at eleven a.m., sitting on his couch in nothing but his boxers. It was obvious he’d been crying.
He yelled at me to get out, and Dad never yelled. Then he didn’t talk to me for a whole month. When he finally invited me out to one of Manhattan’s most exclusive restaurants for dinner—a place you go to be seen as much as for the exquisite cuisine—he was in his most expensive suit and smiling his salesman’s grin. Business was good, he was hobnobbing with the rich and famous, and all was well in the world.
Or so it seemed anyway. He always put on such a good face. I had no idea he was digging himself deeper and deeper until it all toppled like a house of cards.
“Sorry,” I say to the stranger, suddenly feeling the weight of reality like a lead weight on my shoulders, “All my appointments today are canceled.” I lift my hands. “As of ten minutes ago, I’m no longer employed here.”
“You are Melanie Van Bauer?” the stranger asks. When I nod, he stands and holds out a hand to shake. He’s of medium height, maybe pushing seventy, with a full head of neatly cropped white hair.
“Yes,” I say, drawing out the word as I reach forward and take his hand.
“You can call me Owens,” he says with a pleasant smile, giving my hand a firm shake before releasing it. Then he gestures for me to sit behind my desk. “Please, sit. I have a business proposition to discuss with you.”
I tilt my head sideways at him. “Look, I just told you I was fired. I don’t know what kind of—”
“Your father is going to be imprisoned for the rest of his life,” he starts with no preamble. “Probably for multiple consecutive life sentences once all the gory details of his Ponzi scheme are trotted out in the court of public opinion. That sort of thing is not supposed to affect the jury, but we both know this will be tried in the news for months before it ever makes it to the courtroom. The public is crying for blood and believe me, no one treats a man who steals the retirement pensions of nice little old ladies well in prison.”
Oh God, not another one. I’m so not in the mood for this.
“Get out.” I point toward the door. Dad and I have been harassed ever since the news broke. People camp outside my apartment, flinging accusations and worse—I got pelted with a tomato a few days ago. A bag of dog crap the day before that. We’ve been getting death threats over social media and in the mail.
I seriously don’t need this bullshit right now. “I don’t know who let you in here but I’ll call secur—”
Mr. Owens holds his hand up. “What if I told you that you could spare him all of it? That it’s within your power to help him?”
I pause with my desk phone mid-air, about to dial security. What the hell is this guy talking about?
Seeing my hesitation, he hurries to continue on. “I have an interested third party who can get him to a non-extradition country and set him up comfortably for the rest of his life.”
I bark out a laugh and look around. “What is this? You have the office bugged and you’re trying to get me on tape saying something incriminating? I told you bastards I had nothing to do with his company and no matter how deep you dig, you won’t find me anywhere in the records.”