No Fault of Mine

Chapter Twenty-One

Brant helped me straighten the living room, kitchen, and bedroom. Then I sent him to the shower while I made supper: waffles, his choice. I pulled frozen strawberries from the freezer and made strawberry syrup. The milk in the frig was sour, so I used evaporated milk and water for the batter. I heard the bathroom door open and the pattering of his feet as he ran down the hall.

"Did you put your clothes in the hamper?" I called.

His feet stopped pattering on the floor, and I heard the hamper lid hit the wall as it opened and the case as it closed. Then, the pattering of his feet resumed as he ran into the kitchen.

"Smells good," he said, sitting down at the table. "It's my fav."

"I thought hamburgers were your fav," I said, forking the last waffle onto a serving plate.

"Yeah, if it's lunch," he said.

"What about breakfast?"

"Mom, say the blessing. I'm hungry," he said.

After supper, Brent curled up in his bed to read, and I sat under a lamp in the living room, questioning which phone I should use. I had only minutes left on the burner phone, so I turned on my work phone because I didn't see any need to hide. The phone pinged for the next few minutes, signaling I had calls, emails, messages, and texts. They would have to wait.

I texted my sister and let her know I'd arrived home safely and that we cleaned up most of the mess. Next, I called my brother.

"You're back on your work phone, I see," Thad said. I heard negativity in his voice. He wasn't happy.

"Hello to you as well," I said.

"Oh, right, hello," he said. "Are you back in town?"

"We arrived a couple of hours ago."

"About the mess in your house: I thought you'd want to check it out yourself."

"Yeah, sure," I said. Though he was right, I was still annoyed.

"Are you coming to work tomorrow? The office girls complain they can't deal with all the extra work."

"I'll be in," I said. "Did the police find any evidence when checking out the break-in?"

"If they did, they didn't tell me," he said.

"Has Betty said anything about additional losses from three years ago?" I asked.

"Apparently, the embezzlement is limited to this and last year," he said. "I reported it to the police, and Grayson is working on the business details." Grayson Lawrey is our business attorney.

"I'm sure they'll want to talk to me," I said

"Well, that's between you and them," Thad said.

"Not exactly, Thad. I'm a suspect if my initials are on documents. I'm feeling exposed. How does one prove they're innocent?"

"I thought if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear from the law," his voice had hardened.

"Sure, Thad. That sounds very brotherly." I'm sure my bitterness came through in my voice.

"Listen, Mia, look at it from my side. Two people I trusted the most are implicated in a 400k embezzlement. The evidence: Martin and your initials are on the documents, and there are no other suspects."

"Maybe you'd like me not to come to the workplace until this is settled," I said with bitterness.

"Don't take this too far, Mia. I'd like to see more evidence before I make any decisions, but I've instructed Betty to double-check your accounts payable."

"I have no doubt, Thad," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"Now you listen, brother. I'm half-owner of the company. The LLC paperwork is clear as to how we dissolve the partnership should we need to. Until we get to that, I expect the company to continue paying all salaries, including mine."

I was agitated and shaken after we ended the call. I got up and paced the living room. I wanted to cry, scream, break something...all three all at once. Instead, I channeled the energy by washing dishes and checking the state of the rest of the house. The clothes in my husband's closet were on the floor. My clothes had been messed with, but most were still hanging. All the drawers had been pulled out and dumped on the floor. The garage had also been gone through, but of course, I had no idea what might be missing. The attic access had been removed, and it looked like someone had accessed it by climbing on the roof of our jeep.

I stuffed Martin's clothes into his closet and closed the door. I just couldn't bear going through them. I couldn't face the memories his clothing would trigger. I rehung my clothes that had been thrown to the floor and rearranged my shoes in the bottom of the closet.

I returned to the living room. I closed the blinds, turned on more lighting, and checked all the locks in the house.

Finally, I turned on the shower, dropped my clothes on the floor, and stepped under the rain showerhead. As the hot liquid passed over my face, neck, back, and chest, I visualized the washing away of tension and stress. I thought of a mid-summer rainstorm in Kansas, dancing with my sister across our aunt's lawn, feeling cleansed by the warm rain.

A half-hour later, I crawled into bed and opened a book I'd been reading. I'd hoped it'd be enough distraction to keep my mind off the gerbil wheel—no such luck. My mind kept going back to Stan and whether I should call him or not. I wished I could make that decision once and not be bothered by it again. No such luck. I wasn't struggling with the logic of it. I was embroiled emotionally in a tug of war, first pulled one way and then the other. It was torturous. I rolled and tossed, got up, and paced the house. I finally ended up in the study, picking up the files.

After two mugs of coffee and three o'clock in the morning, I was still sorting through files. I set aside those I thought were important and tossed the others by the door to be shredded.

When I began to see the floor, I came across a folder titled "Failsafe." It looked empty, and I was about to toss it when a single sheet of paper dropped to the floor. I picked it up. It was blank. I turned it over, and one word was written by hand and a series of letters and numbers.

The script was written by my husband's hand.