A purple bruise curves under his eye socket, darker by the second. I run my fingers lightly over the bone and he hisses.
“Does it hurt that bad?”
“It’s not broken. I’m fine.” He rearranges the ice pack, hiding the bruise. “It just hurts. He clocked me. I didn’t even duck.”
“It’s probably for the best.” He grunts, the sound vaguely disapproving, but he knows I’m right. The guy threatened to shoot the doorknob. He could have shot my dad. “Did he really have a gun?”
Anger swells. There’s no doubt in my mind that my dad is not an innocent party. I’m angry on behalf of Mia and Ben, who had to watch it happen. Who could have beenhurt.I know better than to express that emotion to my dad. It will only get in the way of planning the next steps.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see it, but that doesn’t mean anything. Could have had it in his waistband.”
Okay. The real question. The heart of the matter. “What is it this time?”
My dad closes his uncovered eye. “A loan.”
“A loan from who?” No bank in the city, probably the country, probably theworld,will give my dad an actual loan.
“It was more like borrowing,” he admits.
Borrowingnever means borrowing when it comes to my dad. It meansstealing.And what he’s stolen, he spends. He never has a plan to pay it back. His mouth curves down, and now I know why he’s so insistent on keeping that eye closed. He doesn’t want to look at me.
“Are you going to pay him back?”
He leans miserably against the wall, his cheeks turning red. “Money’s gone. I can’t give it back to him. Couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”
For a good minute, I can’t speak. In the end, there’s no one else to do it. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“Bristol…” He takes the ice pack gingerly away from his eye, struggling to keep both of them open. The bruise looks even worse. “Don’t you have that fancy job now?”
“Dad.”
“Can’t you borrow some money?”
“No, Dad.” I can’t keep hot frustration out of my voice. “I’m a temp. It’s not the kind of office where they just leave piles of cash lying around.”
“Then you have something even better. If it’s all money in accounts, all computers…” His eyes glint, hope setting in. “You can sign off on a purchase order.”
I stare at him. “A purchase order for what?”
“You’re a secretary, right?”
“Atemporarysecretary. The assignment is only for two weeks, and I might not even last that long.” Mr. Leblanc certainly hadn’t thought so.
“Perfect. God, Bristol, that’s perfect.” He returns the ice pack to his face, sighing like I’ve just revealed that we won the lottery. “Just put in a purchase order.”
“Again, Dad, forwhat?”
“For anything.” He smiles, the gesture half-hidden by the ice pack. “Toilet paper. Coffee beans. Whatever you need in the office. They’ll pay it without thinking twice.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
His visible eye snaps open, and he looks at me with such perfect sincerity that I know it’s a con. “He threatened the twins, Bristol.”
My stomach drops. Not a con, then. Not a lie. The truth, coming from my dad, is worse. “What did he say, exactly? Mia couldn’t tell me. She was too terrified.”
“He said he’d come back for them.” His hand tightens on the ice pack. “He said that if I didn’t pay, he’d come back for them and finish the job.”
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