Page 16 of A Thin Line

“Well…based on the estimated damages, this would be a felony. I think that’s punishable up to three years or so plus restitution. But it depends on what other charges the DA would come up with.”

They were talking about my future almost as if I wasn’t there.

While Whittier nodded, the detective continued. “She could probably be charged with conspiracy too. That would add on more years and more restitution. And the DA always thinks of other stuff we don’t.”

“The restitution…would she have to pay back all of the damages?”

“No idea.”

Whittier looked straight at me when he asked the next question. His eyes seemed to bore into the depths of my soul—and yet he couldn’t see the truth. “What if she gave up the names of her conspirators? Would the penalties be mitigated in that case?”

“If she cooperates, sometimes that helps. Not always.”

The unnamed officer cleared his throat. “Bear in mind that you have to prove she did it. Your evidence is circumstantial.”

The detective started to speak, but Whittier beat her to the punch. “It doesn’t matter. In the time it takes to build a case, we’ll make your life a living hell. If you think your father had it bad before, think again. The last twenty years will seem like a cake walk.”

The thought of jail—and having to pay back hundreds of thousands dollars’ worth of damage—was bad enough. Growing up under that shadow, I could probably handle more…but there was the question of my father. That whole experience had nearly ruined him, and I was convinced it had weakened his immune system, making him susceptible to illness and disease—so one more thing I blamed the Whittier family for was my father’s ailing health.

Something like this might kill him.

So when Sinclair Whittier made an offer that would avoid all that…it’s no wonder I took it.

Whittier’s expression lightened somewhat, but I found the slight smile just as scary as his earlier scowl. “I’m gathering that we have an option here.” Standing, he faced the detective and resumed talking about me as if I were in another room. “We can choose not to press charges—and we can choose to forego asking insurance to cover the damages. I can pay for any necessary repairs.”

Dr. Rakhimov spat, “And let her get away with this travesty?”

“I said nothing of the sort. She will pay.” He sat across from me again, his voice low, his expression intense. I felt like I was going to vomit. “I am going to make you a one-time offer. You can come work for me—and work off the cost of the damages.”

I saw a glimmer of hope. “What would I be doing?”

“You would work for me in my mansion.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know yet.” Leaning over the desk, he got closer to my face, so close that I could feel his electromagnetic energy as if it were a palpable thing. “If you refuse, I will do whatever it takes to make sure you are punished to the full extent of the law—and all the while I’ll see to it that you and your family are absolutely miserable. Everywhere you turn, everywhere you go there will be someone to remind you of what you did here and what’s coming. And don’t think it will end after the trial.”

I knew these were not empty threats. I’d lived through much of my father’s persecution and was myself suffering in the aftermath.

At this point, I was grasping at straws. “You said I’d be working off the damages. How much—”

“The lab cost over one-point-five million dollars. We can round it down.” He turned his head so that he could face Dr. Rakhimov again. “Leona, what’s Colorado’s minimum wage nowadays?”

I knew what minimum wage was because that was what I was earning as Dr. R.’s teaching assistant—but I wasn’t about to cough up that information.

“Isn’t it higher in Denver?”

“Oh, that’s right. Then let’s just round it up to twenty dollars an hour.” Again, he stood and began pacing, speaking as if to himself. “Forty hours a week at twenty dollars an hour would be eight-hundred dollars a week, but for simple math, let’s just say that comes to around forty-thousand a year.”

My heart sank as I envisioned working off this debt for the rest of my life. I wasn’t a math major but it was easy enough to figure out that it would take me thirty years—provided he didn’t charge interest on top. Suddenly, jail time and universal persecution didn’t sound so bad.

But it was like he read my mind—and, as if to emphasize his next words, he again sat across from me. “However, I would consider your debt paid if you work for me for ten years.”

Ten years seemed like such a long time. After all, ten years earlier, I was still a child of nine. Although I’d felt much of the town’s anger and hatred of my family, I was still to a degree innocent. I played with dolls and read books that had a few illustrations. I wasn’t yet wearing a bra or menstruating.

Ten years from now, I would be close to thirty years old.

Again, my mind pondered the possibilities—and I didn’t think my father could survive another long never-ending rake through the mud. I believed it would kill him. And then if I had to go to jail, it was possible I’d be locked away for the same amount of time—but I’d still have money to pay back.

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