Page 57 of Filthy Rich

“Okay,” I say. “But what does that?—”

Bea holds up one hand, like she’s a mob boss, or an officious mean girl. It makes me smile. When I peer over her shoulder, she’s typing out a text to Jake.

Seren just told me your dad’s out of prison? Have you seen him? Heard from him? Text me back when you get this, or I’ll come over to your apartment and refuse to leave.

Of course there’s no response. It’s barely five-thirty in the morning.

“Hey, this is good.” Bea looks up at me. “He told me two days ago that he’s filming this morning starting at eight a.m. Let’s get ready, and we can stop by on our way to our filming or whatever.”

I have no idea what we might possibly do if his dad is here, but I suppose Bea’s just desperate to know. She seems utterly convinced that his dad will hunt him down now that he’s out, but I’m not so sure. On the way to the set, I ask, “Is it possible his dad might ignore him? I got the impression they haven’t been talking much.”

Bea’s brow furrows. “That would be nice, but I doubt very much if he’d really be able to leave Jake alone.”

“He was an embezzler, right? That’s what he did?”

Bea’s frown deepens. “What did Jake tell you?”

“Not much,” I admit. “But he said that when his dad was supposed to get out, he got caught stealing money and got stuck in there even longer.”

She sighs. “That’s true.” She glances at our driver and drops her voice. “But the reason he went in the first time is that he tried to pull a con on the principal at our school the same time Jake was pulling one on Mom and Dad, and the principal was talking to Mom about something, and Mom put two and two together, and they managed to convict Jake’s dad—with my mom’s testimony.”

Shoot.

He didn’t tell me that part. “Wait, and then Jake was fostered by your parents? Isn’t that weird, since they sent his dad to prison?”

Bea shrugs. “His dad apparently encouraged it, but I always felt like it was a ‘know your enemies’ kind of thing. I don’t think Jake’s dad is a good person, and I doubt he’s gotten much better. I’m worried what he may do now that he’s out. Or more specifically, I’m worried what he might convince Jake to do.”

Now I am, too.

It can’t be easy for Jake. I’d have thought living with Dave and Seren would’ve been hard on him, too. “Could they not find him another placement?”

Bea leans her face against the window, so her voice is a little muffled. “I mean, they could have, but. . .” She sighs, her breath fogging up the glass. “Everyone loved Jake, even then, but once the truth came out, he didn’t really have any friends.”

“Except for you.”

She nods. “I think, or I’ve always thought, that he stayed with Dave and Seren because of me, but I know he grew to care about them, too.”

Jake was right. It’s complicated. “Alright, so we’ll be at the studio soon, and if his dad has reached out, what do we say?”

Bea shrugs. “I guess I’ll do what I always do. Ask him what he’s going to do and then tell him that he’s being an idiot.” She turns back to face me. “Prepare yourself for that, if you do like him. He usually makes the wrong decision before he makes the right one.”

I do try.

But nothing can really prepare me for Jake’s dad.

Chapter 14

Jake

My dad’s a bad person.

I’ve known that for quite some time.

Ironically, it wasn’t seeing my dad lie shamelessly in his testimony in front of a judge that convinced me. It wasn’t watching other people call him a criminal. It wasn’t even the judge reprimanding him, saying he was what was wrong with America, and it certainly wasn’t watching them sentence him to the maximum penalty for his crime.

No, what convinced me that my dad was a bad person was living with two truly good people.

You can’t really understand dark until you’ve seen light. You can’t comprehend salty without tasting bland. Most concepts are really defined by the existence of their opposite, so it wasn’t until I saw how good people handled the same situations I’d already encountered that I really came to understand that my dad was the opposite of that.

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