Page 14 of Justice Denied

Jetta dug in her heels to slow the chair as they neared another turn, this time to the left. Her foot slipped, but she managed to keep her balance and the chair upright. She leaned into the chair, using the momentum to turn it without more pressure.

“What is going on?” An older man, his face suffused with red, blocked their way a short distance down the hall. “This isn’t a roller derby.”

Jetta slowed the chair to a halt a couple of feet in front of him. Mom smiled up at the man. “Mr. Danvers, have you met my youngest daughter, Jetta? Jetta, this is the daytime manager, Mr. Danvers.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Danvers.” Jetta held out her hand to the man, but he ignored it.

“Mrs. Ainsley, you must not allow your family members to behave in such a way. It’s simply not how we run things at Sunshine Rehab Center.”

“Perhaps it should be, Mr. Danvers.” Mom craned her neck to catch her daughter’s eye and winked. Then she slumped in the chair, the picture of fragility. “Please take me to my room. I’m feeling tired all of a sudden.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jetta nodded at Mr. Danvers and hustled her mother down the hall to her room. Once inside, she shut the door and helped her mother to the easy chair. “Do you need anything else?”

“Some water, please.” Mom gestured to the plastic cup with a lid and straw on the end table.

After filling the large mug with water, she returned. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, my dear.” Mom took a long swig. “And thanks for the ride.”

“I hope I didn’t get you Mr. Danvers’ bad graces.”

Mom waved her hand. “I can handle Mr. Danvers. He thinks much too highly of himself as it is, so I never pass up the opportunity to tweak his nose a bit.”

Jetta filled a plastic cup with water from the adjourning bathroom for herself, then took the window seat. She should tell Mom about what happened to Bingley but wasn’t sure how to phrase it so as to not alarm her. She also wanted to bring up the subject of Dad and the charges leveled against him, but seeing how exhausted Mom appeared, she decided to wait before opening that particular can of worms.

Her mother set the mug on the tray table. “I have something to tell you.”

The serious expression on her mother’s face sent her heart rate soaring. Was her mother’s condition more serious than she’d thought?

“I’m fine, at least physically.”

Mom’s ability to read Jetta’s mind hadn’t dimmed over the years. “That obvious?”

“Only to your mother.” Mom sighed. “I should have told you years ago, but it’s something I wanted to forget.”

Jetta suspected she knew the topic. “It’s about Dad and the embezzlement charges, right?”

“How did you know?” Mom narrowed her eyes. “Did one of your siblings tell you?”

“Jason and Jade did, but not until I asked them yesterday when they called me.” Before her mother could ask her further questions, Jetta tugged the envelope from her purse. “This came in the mail, addressed to Dad.”

Her mother took the proffered envelope. She ran a finger over the address, then pulled the envelope closer to her face. “This was mailed fifteen years ago?”

“I think so, as the postmark appears genuine, especially when you read the note inside.” Jetta waited while her mother extracted the papers and read the top sheet before shuffling through the remaining pages.

A few tears trickled down Mom’s cheeks. “Oh, if only this had arrived on time, your father might still be alive.” She blotted her cheeks with a tissue. “I never doubted his innocence. Your father had more integrity in his little finger than most people had in their entire bodies. There was no way—No. Way.—Dad would have taken that money.” She gripped the envelope. “Someone framed him, and now we have proof.”

Math had never been Jetta’s strong suit—she much preferred wordsmithing to addition or subtraction. The spreadsheets and bank accounts with all those numbers meant little to her. “So you understand what the enclosed pages mean?”

“I haven’t a clue. I’ve been thinking a lot about that time since I’ve been laid up with this monstrosity.” She thumped her leg cast. “Hindsight does give you clarity, and I wish I had pushed more to clear your father’s name.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Grief, then trying to simply survive. I did talk to a lawyer but was advised to let it drop lest Topher Robotics take me to court to recover the millions Dad had been accused of embezzling. I couldn’t afford that, so I convinced myself the wisest course of action would be to do nothing.”

Jetta mentally reviewed all the information she’d read online. “I read the newspaper accounts from the time, but most of the stories after Dad died rehashed the charges. Did they ever find the money they said Dad had taken?”

“No. After Dad died, Topher Robotics hired a forensic accountant to go through the books to figure out where the money had gone. They tracked down about two million in an offshore account in the Cayman Islands Dad allegedly opened and recovered that money. But eight nor nine million was never recovered.”

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