Page 20 of Fierce-Matt

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I’m going to assume the business is failing?”

“I can give you a rundown before they get here. It’s best if you know anyway.”

She was sitting in a chair across from him and leaned back to cross her legs in jeans. He’d taken his suit jacket off, no tie, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar.

He wasn’t as formal when he was in the office all day.

“Fill me in,” he said.

“My father was recently diagnosed with dementia. He’s in the middle stage. We saw the signs and lied to ourselves about it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s so young.”

“He’s sixty-eight,” she said. “He should have retired years ago and didn’t. He said he was going to at sixty-five but held on for Shelly.”

“The woman who stole from him?” Talk about a double whammy.

“Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it?” she asked sarcastically. “She was a widow and far from retirement, but she’d have a hard time finding another job since she’d been with him from the beginning. Being nice and noble cost him everything.”

Matt felt there was a double meaning there but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“It sounds it. Catch me up on the criminal aspect of this.”

“They are still gathering everything to get the final tally, but over almost a decade it could be close to five hundred thousand. Shelly can’t seem to pinpoint anything but said she started small when her husband was sick. That was close to ten years ago.When he died, he left her with a lot of debt. Then I think she got greedy.”

“That always happens. People dip their toe in and say they will pay it back. Then they realize no one noticed, so they become bolder.”

“That’s it exactly. My parents would like to sue to get back what they can. It won’t be much. She’s got little at this point and will have legal fees.”

“Does she own a home?” he asked.

“She does. No one wants to leave a person homeless,” she said. “Or I wouldn’t, but my mother said she would because she needs to protect my father and his long-term care.”

“It could be your parents that are homeless if they don’t get some of this money back.” She blinked her eyes over his bluntness. “Sorry to say that. I don’t know their personal financial situation. I’m only throwing out all sides.”

“It’s not great,” she said. “Don’t be sorry. That is part of it. It was a dying business my father should have walked away from years ago. He should have sold it or the building and invested that money.”

“He owns the building it’s in?” he asked. It was in a nice commercial area. “What kind of shape is it in?”

“That’s one saving grace,” she said, forcing a smile. “The building has a lot of value. More than he would have had years ago if he’d retired. It needs some cosmetic work, but it’s not horrible. He’d taken a loan out to make repairs about ten years ago. He’s got a line of credit to cover bills that were falling behind. He could never figure out why.”

“Now he knows,” he said. What a shitty way to find out.

She nodded. “He showed signs of memory loss a few years ago and I believe my mother pushed it off as stress over the business. Some of it age.”

“It’s easy enough to do that,” he said.

“I told her not to beat herself up over it. There is nothing we can do about the past and it’s better to prepare for the future. My father is declining fast so we have to take care of this now while he can. He agrees to selling the business. My mother has reached out to a few people she knows to see if they are interested and no one is biting. There are several contractors willing to buy large quantities of inventory.”

“Let me guess,” he said. “At a discounted rate?”

She shrugged. “I can’t blame them for wanting a bargain. We are in a bind, but it doesn’t appear as if anyone is robbing my father either. At least other than employees. I don’t know enough about the business.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Can I ask why you or EJ never got involved in it?”

She pursed her lips. “It’s not something I was interested in. Not that I know what the heck I want to do with my life and that sounds ridiculous at my age, but there it is. Didn’t you always tell me I was being stupid or silly?”

Matt hated those words thrown back in his face decades later that he’d said while trying to get her attention or impress her.