Chapter 1 - HER FATHER WAS ON HIS KNEES
Chloe Mercer returned to Scottsdale two days early and found her father kneeling in spilled food.
Norman Hale was sixty-seven, broad-shouldered from forty years of farm work, but age had thinned him. His plaid shirt was damp at the cuffs. Broken eggs, homemade sausage, and pieces of a casserole container covered the hardwood around him.
He scrubbed with an old rag.
Heather lounged on Chloe’s sofa eating grapes.
“Clean it properly, Norman,” she said. “This whole house smells like your filthy little farm.”
Chloe stopped in the doorway.
Her rolling suitcase tipped onto its side.
Susan, her mother-in-law, looked up from the other end of the sofa.
Nobody looked embarrassed.
That was the worst part.
“Dad?”
Norman’s head lifted.
His face changed when he saw her.
Not relief.
Fear.
“Chloe?”
She crossed the room.
Heather sat upright.
“You’re supposed to be in Chicago.”
“My meeting ended early.”
Chloe took the rag from Norman.
“Stand up.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re on your knees cleaning food while these two watch you.”
Susan rose.
“Don’t make a scene. He brought that disgusting food, so he cleans it.”
Chloe knocked Susan’s reaching hand away and pulled Norman upright.
“Get your hands away from my father.”
Heather laughed.
“Your father dumped half a Nebraska barnyard in the kitchen.”
Norman caught Chloe’s wrist.
“Not yet.”
She turned.
“What?”
His eyes flicked toward Susan.
Then Heather.
“Please.”
That frightened Chloe more than his humiliation.
Norman reached into his shirt pocket and pressed a folded notarized document into her palm.
“Dad?”
“Read it later.”
Chloe opened it anyway.
Her own husband’s name appeared halfway down the page.
Kyle Mercer.
The document granted Kyle limited authority to arrange financing secured by Norman’s 520-acre farm outside York, Nebraska.
Chloe looked up.
“Why does Kyle have permission to mortgage your farm?”
Norman’s mouth trembled.
“He told me you were in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He said federal investigators detained you in Chicago.”
Chloe stared.
Norman kept going because stopping would make the words more real.
“He said one of your company’s vendors was under investigation. Said your lawyer had seventy-two hours to put three million dollars into some restitution account before they charged you.”
“Dad, that never happened.”
“I know that now.”
Susan’s face changed.
Chloe noticed.
Norman lowered his voice.
“Kyle said you couldn’t call me because your phone had been taken.”
Chloe slowly turned toward Susan.
Her mother-in-law’s smugness had vanished.
“What did you know?”
Susan stepped backward.
“Chloe, you’ve just walked in. You’re exhausted.”
Norman squeezed Chloe’s wrist.
Then whispered the sentence Susan clearly did not want said.
“Kyle went to the lender this afternoon.”
Chloe looked at the clock.
4:17 p.m.
May you like
Banks were still open.
And her husband was somewhere in Arizona trying to turn her father’s Nebraska farm into three million dollars.
