Page 38 of Hartley

“Not for nothing, but you see who I’m in a relationship with. Do you think I run around the city and make myself an even bigger target?” Sometimes I worried if I was running errands. Mostly, I tried to push it from my mind and trusted Rory to keep me safe. I wasn’t sure if that was the smart thing to do. It was that or become like my brother, apparently.

“If you see this, you’re going to tell Jordan and V. I don’t want them involved. It will only escalate.”

“When have you known Vail to add fuel to any fire? That’s not him. Jordan, well, you’re spot-on. But you need to show me because now I’m curious. I won’t stop asking until I see what you have.”

Forest looked over his shoulder toward the front of the studio, where Rory still stood guard. Facing me again, Forestopened the paper and put it on the table I was working at, smoothing it down so I could read it. Thankfully, it was written in pen. If it had been pencil, some of it would have probably worn away due to the shape it was in.

Sure enough, our grandfather’s name was at the top in all caps. The rest of the note was written that way, like this was how whoever wrote it liked to write. My grandfather had much less refined writing, using a choppy cursive that was hard to read.

There were four rows with dates on the left and monetary amounts in columns to the right. No years.

SEPTEMBER 8th | $125,000 | $100,000 | $50,000 | $0

FEBRUARY 16th | $25,000 | $15,000 | $0

AUGUST 1st | $5,000 | $0

JANUARY 29th | $200,000 | $195,000| $150,000

“What the hell is this?” I asked. Was my grandfather helping someone with their accounting? The man wasn’t the best with money, obviously, but maybe he was helping one of his neighbors.

“Keep reading.”

I moved lower on the page.

LATE FEES | $10,000 | $20,000 | $30,000 | $40,000

And lower still.

A signature that readE. Everhart.

My eyes went wide. “No,” I gasped.

“Yes.” Forest took the paper and folded it back into a little crinkled square, shoving it into his pocket. “Do you know what this means?”

“He owes that awful family a lot of money and he’s not here to pay the debt.” Oh my god, what did he get himself into?

“I don’t think the cancer killed him.”

“What?” I yelled, which caused Rory to peek his head in the door. I told him I was fine, and he went back outside. “What the fuck, For? What do you mean, the fucking cancer didn’t kill him?”

“I don’t know for certain, but a man doesn’t owe this much money and get to leave this earth on his own.”

“You think they killed him?” Did that mean Lane could have had a hand in it? He told us he never did that shit with his family, but he was also in our building at this very moment. A building I had friends and loved ones in. “I have to call Jordan.” I went to grab my phone from the table, but Forest lunged, knocking it to the floor. “If you don’t stop it, I’m going to punch you,” I growled. It was nothing like Jordan did, but I hoped it came off threatening.

It didn’t.

Forest walked around me and used his foot to push my phone across the tile, away from me. “Let me finish before you call your boyfriend.”

“You know he’s much more than that.”

“I don’t care. Aren’t you going to ask how I got it?” Oh, right. That was a good question.

“How did you?”

“Sheldon gave it to me.”

“Wha—” My yell was cut off when Forest put his hand over my mouth.

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