Page 103 of A Ticking Time Boss

Love. The thing he’s never been capable of, I think, but I don’t say it.

“William is a doctor now. He’s two years older than you.”

I put my cup down hard enough to rattle the table. “I don’t want to know.”

“All right, noted. In your own time,” he says. “They’re curious about you, though.”

“You texted Mom,” I say, my voice granite. Enough of this. “I never want you to contact her again.”

Dad gives a slow nod. “I understand that. But we had a relationship aside from you, you know. She might want to—”

“Then you wait for her to reach out. She has your number. But you will never fucking wait outside her apartment like you did with me today. Do you get that? You do that, and I will never speak to you again until the day I die. And I fucking mean that. You don’t mess with Mom again.”

He leans back, eyes widening slightly. But he nods. “Understood,” he says. “You’re good to her.”

“Not something I learned from you.” I drain the rest of my coffee. This has already gone on for too long. “Look, I get that you’re out of prison and ready to pick up the pieces of your old life. But we haven’t been sitting around waiting for that. I have a life. Mom has a life. And we’re both better without you in them.”

Dad is still, eyes unreadable. “Okay. I understand.”

“You lied to us every single day you were with us in New York. If not by your words, then by your actions,” I say. “I thought my father was a brilliant travelling businessman. Turns out he was a cheat, and a liar, and a con artist.”

“I was all of those things,” he says. “And a father. I always treasured that role the most.”

“I don’t believe you.” The word I don’t add is yet. Maybe I will, one day. But opening myself up to this man again is so far in the future I’d need binoculars to see it.

“Thanks for speaking to me,” Dad says. “Do you want me to—”

“Wait for me to contact you.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

I stand, ready to leave, when something strikes me. William and Jenny. He’d said the names of my half-siblings, the names I’d only seen once in a PI’s file and been unable to forget. William, Jenny, and Sarah.

And me, Carter.

A terrible suspicion threads its way through me. I know so little of what he did when he was away… but none of it was good.

“Were you ever in Alrich? Around ten years ago? Must have been right before you went to prison.”

His eyebrows rise, but he nods. “Yes.”

“A dentist,” I say softly. The world feels shaky beneath my feet. “Two teenage kids. He trusted you with his pension and his kid’s college funds.”

Dad looks out the window for a moment. “Now that you mention it… yes. I met them. He’s one of the many I need to make penance for. I had a scheme at the time, for dentists. Met a number of them upstate.”

“You could give them their money back.”

“I wish I could,” he says. “But I have nothing left.”

That, at least, I believe. His money management skills were always terrible.

I feel sick, putting the connections in place. “Will C. Jenner.”

“Was that the alias I used in Alrich?”

He doesn’t even remember. I nod, my breath coming fast. I want to punch him. I want to weep. Dad was the man who ruined Audrey’s family, who forced her into student debt, who rolled like a wrecking ball through her safe and loving home life with lies and deceit.

Dad chuckles a little. “That was a foolish, arrogant habit. I used to name myself after you kids. Different combinations, you know. That name had Will, for William, of course. C for Carter. Jenner for Jenny.”

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