Page 88 of Love Undercover
The shirt twisted tighter in her hands, and she couldn’t stop the flow of questions, each shoved out by the building anxiety. “Will he even know who you are?”
If Chase found it annoying, he gave no indication. “I mean, Kesterson tracked my dad for years, so he knew about my mom and me. My dad was a con man. They had to dive deep and follow every aspect of his life to nail him.”
She felt like a starved dog reacting to every snippet of his past he was suddenly dropping for her. “So your dad was pretty clever.”
Chase frowned like he didn’t like her observation. “Yeah. Until he wasn’t.”
The way he said it. . . She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“My dad was methodical. About everything.” He paused, the weight of the words he wasn’t saying pressing around them. “It was almost like my dad wanted to get caught.”
The weight grew heavier, sizzling on the air with intensity, like Chase’s mind was slowly coming to terms with his spoken realization.
“He wanted to get caught,” he repeated.
She didn’t know how to read his reaction. The way his brows knit over his eyes as he continued to stare forward didn’t give much away. It could have been anger, hurt, confusion. She didn’t know much about his dad or their relationship, but she remembered that he’d said his dad had died of cancer, too.
“It wasn’t long after he was locked up that he got diagnosed.”
It was as if he’d read her thoughts, his mind going where hers had, though via a different path. She had no background information, no history to sift through. But those two things, without much context, still led her to a possible conclusion.
“Do you think he knew? And that’s why?” The prompting questions crept out, like she was tip-toeing past a slumbering bear.
Still, he jerked to look at her. “You mean he made sure he got caught because he knew he was sick?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t know him. I’m just throwing it out there. Your tone suggested maybe you were suspicious about the timing.”
His jaw shifted a little as he stared at her. Then he slowly turned back to the road, rubbing his hand along his chin as he brooded. “But why would he rather get caught?”
A thought crossed her mind, but she waited a beat to say it, wary of his reaction, of what this conversation was already doing to him. “Did you and your mom get something out of him going to jail?”
His knuckles went white on the steering wheel. “My mom thought we would lose everything.” His voice was so soft she almost didn’t hear it.
“But you didn’t?” she prompted when a full minute ticked by without another word from him.
She wasn’t sure if she should stop, leave the topic alone, but he hadn’t told her to mind her own business yet, eve as his continued hesitation wrapped itself around them.
“No.” He scowled toward the road. “I went to college. She moved away. I got a partial scholarship, a job so I could work for the rest. Except whatever was left over was always paid before I could do it, directly to the school. I only ended up paying for housing and my books.” His lips flattened, and he shook his head. “She claimed it was an inheritance from her father. But. . . my grandfather was a two-bit mechanic. Where would he get that kind of money?”
There was very little emotion in his words, but each one was a shot to her heart. Because she saw it for what it was: his protection mechanism. Keep it all locked up tight until it exploded. And maybe this part hadn’t come to the surface yet. Or maybe it had, and he’d battled it back, using the intensity of physical exertion to expel the fiery energy of his anger.
“Because I didn’t want to know what my dad had been into, I wanted no part of it, no part of him, so I believed her.” His jaw clenched at the same moment his hands did. “I should have. . .”
“What?” she asked when he didn’t finish. “Denied the money? How could you?”
He threw one hand up. “I could have unregistered, transferred somewhere else, cut myself off from her. I can’t believe she would use his dirty money like that.”
As if a kid was responsible for what their parents did. How many kids did she see day in and day out who were hurting because of the decisions their parents made for them?
“Chase, you were young. And it gave you opportunities you wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
“But I was complicit by allowing her to use his tainted money.” He huffed. “I’m no better than he was.”
“You are,” she insisted. “Look at what you’re doing right now. You saved me. Twice. And now you’re working as hard as you can to bring some of the worst guys down. Even if it means putting yourself in danger.”
He shook his head.
“Chase, please.” She put her hand on his arm, desperate to make him see, to understand. “Pull over.”
