“Can’t anyone bank there anyway? Like in Switzerland?”
“Of course, Sis, but an offshore account in the Caymans is a major red flag for someone like Dad, who basically, as far as I knew, was a rancher making a modest living.”
“So you found the account. So what?”
“I found the account. What was also interesting was the amount of money in the account.”
“How much? Ten or twenty thousand?”
“Try nine hundred thousand,” Blake said. “Here was an account in our father’s name with nearly a million dollars in it, and all this time we’d been living so frugally. Not that I minded, but sheesh, you and I would compete and turn over our purses to them. Was that fair?”
Sydney shook her head. “Doesn’t seem to be. Do you know where the money came from?”
“I confronted Pop about the whole thing. He told me it was none of my goddamned business and to get the hell out if I didn’t like it.”
“So you left.”
“Not yet. I went to Mom.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me about how they’d met and fallen in love when they were still kids. How they’d run away and gotten married and had me soon thereafter. They’d wanted no part of their families’ criminal activities.”
“So where did the money come from?”
“It’s Pop’s money, from a trust fund from his mother.”
“And they wouldn’t use it?”
“No. He told Mom it was dirty money and he wanted no part of it.”
“Then why didn’t they just give it to charity or something?”
“I asked that same question. She said Pop refused to. He said they never knew when they might need it.”
“Oh God.” Sydney’s heart fell to her tummy. “They took Duke away. They might have even left the country with all that money.”
“Yes, they might have. But there was still one thing that didn’t jibe. The account papers showed multiple withdrawals from the account. So if Dad refused to use the money, who made the withdrawals?”
“Did you ask Mom?”
“I did. She said I must have misread the statements. There hadn’t been any withdrawals. Then she refused to discuss the matter further.” Blake shook his head. “You can think what you want about me. I’m no Einstein, but for God’s sake, I can read an account statement. Money had been withdrawn.”
“Are you sure it was trust fund money? Mom and Dad weren’t doing anything illegal, were they?”
“I wish I knew, Sis, but I don’t.”
Dear God.
“I didn’t have the money myself to go looking into that kind of stuff. I got myself into some trouble, as you know, and every last cent I made went to bail myself out of that. All I knew is that I wanted no part of them. They let that money sit there when we had some lean years as kids, Syd. Do you remember?”
She remembered all too well. “I’m sure they had their reasons.”
“Yes, they had their reasons,” Blake said, “and obviously they thought those reasons made logical sense at the time. But it burns my ass that they had this money. I wanted to go to college. So did you. Remember? We could have gone to any school we wanted. They had the money. But we didn’t get to go, and someone, either Mom or Dad, had been withdrawing money from that account during those years.”
“We can still go to college, Blake.”
“Sure we can, if we have the money. I don’t have the money right now, do you?”