Page 21 of Sultry Nights

He was handsome, so incredibly handsome, and smart and gosh he ran his own business and he ran it well, something Isaac never did. Isaac was always scamming people. That was his business, actually. He was a professional scammer.

Why didn't she see it sooner? She pulled into her parents’ driveway and noticed the lights were still on. She sighed deeply and hefted herself out of the car. She suddenly felt ten years older. The weight of Isaac and his shit sat heavily on her. As she sauntered toward the front door, the porch light clicked, and she saw her dad peek out the window.

Before she made it to the front door, it opened. "Hey baby girl, come on in. What's going on?"

She hesitated a moment, stepped in, and gave her dad a big hug. "Do you and Mom have a minute? I know it's late, but I need to speak with you about something."

His gray brows furrowed, and he stared into her eyes for a while. "Of course, we always have time for you honey. Come on in."

She moved into the living room where her mother sat, concern already on her face. Her mom stood and edged toward her. Wrapping her arms around her mom, she heard her whisper. "I was hoping you'd tell us something sooner or later. I could tell today something wasn't right."

Hanna chuckled. "You know me so well, but I thought this was something I could handle. I guess I need reinforcements and maybe some help."

She sat on the sofa next to her mom. Her dad sat in a chair across the coffee table from them. He leaned his elbows on his knees, folded his hands together, and looked her in the eye.

"The best way to do it is to peel the band-aid off girl." Hanna nodded and swallowed. "I know."

She sighed. "So Isaac pulled another fun scam and I've got some women trying to involve me in it."

Her father's glance to her mother didn't go unnoticed, but Hanna kept telling her story.

"It appears Isaac has been catfishing women.”

Her mother turned to her. "What does that mean?"

“Catfishing, you know, pretending to be someone on the internet, promising them the moon, ‘I'm going to marry you, I'm rich, I'm starting a new business, I just need a little bit of money.’

“Etcetera, etcetera. He got these women to send him money. And two of them have now found me and are planning on suing me to get all their money back or at least some of it.”

Her father shook his head, "Well that's not going to go anywhere. You're legally divorced, so it doesn't matter. They can try to sue all they want to."

"I know, Dad, but it appears that he was catfishing them while we were still married. The second lady, who called today, told me it took her two years to find me. That would have made me married to Isaac at the time. I don't know what will happen with this. I don't know what the legal ramifications are."

Her father said, "Well, we'll talk to our attorney, Grant Park, tomorrow. You can come into his office with me, and we're going to sit down and talk this out and see what he thinks. I think if you can prove that you've never touched that money; and quite frankly, if Isaac was getting money from these women, where was he putting it? Did he have a private bank account? That would be the best thing. Then we could prove that you never touched it. Even for things like paying the house payment or car payments or any marital expenses. So if we can prove that he had a separate bank account, that's the best thing."

She took a deep breath. Could it be that simple? "Well, he had to have a separate bank account, Dad, because I had my own account. We had a joint account that we each deposited money into every month to pay expenses like the house payment and any repairs on the house. And then he had his own account, which I assume is where he was putting the money unless he also had a second separate account."

"How did he deposit money into that joint account?"

"His employer direct deposited it."

Her father nodded. "Well, that's good to know. That certainly keeps the lines clearer between you and these women."

Hanna picked at a piece of lint on her skort. "Okay, so the other thing I didn't tell you about, but am confessing now, is that Isaac had sweet-talked the redhead at the bank into giving him access to my account. He told her that I stole from him and he just wanted his money back. She drained my account for him and transferred the money over to his account electronically. I spoke to the bank this week. I found out when I went to the thrift store to buy the bathroom vanity. The bank is making me whole. They fired the redhead and they are setting things in place to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone ever again."

Her father leaned back in his chair. "Shit."

Hanna's mom reached over, picked up her hand, and held it tightly. "But what I'd like for you to do, Dad, is take over or be a second on my bank account so that you can watch it more regularly than I do. With just getting my feet wet in the bakery right now, I don't have time to check my bank account every day. And I need somebody else to help me watch over it."

Her father's soft smile warmed her heart. "Honey, we would do anything for you and I absolutely will do everything in my power to make sure Isaac Annen doesn't ever get a red cent from you again. As for these women, tomorrow we're going to go talk to Grant. We're going to figure out how we can protect you from these women. They shouldn't even be allowed to contact you. So we'll put a stop to that, and we'll set things in place to protect you from any more women coming out of the woodwork and harassing you."

Her mom squeezed her hand again. Her father rubbed his chin with his fingers. "It's a shame. You married yourself one piece of work there, but I'm so glad you're not married to him anymore. It makes us rest easier knowing that he's not out there scamming you or getting you involved in his gambling and ridiculous games. I tell you, it broke our hearts seeing you work so hard to pay off cars that he'd gambled away because you had loans on them. We were so worried. I'm glad those times are over."

"Me too, Dad. Me too." She repeated. "I was so stupid not to see him for what he was before."

Her mom let go of her hand and patted her knee. "Young love. We've all been there."

Her mom's eyes swiveled to her dad's, and she smiled. Then she looked back at Hanna.

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