Chapter 6 - SUSAN STOPPED PRETENDING SHE KNEW NOTHING
Susan returned the next morning without Heather.
Chloe almost refused to let her inside.
Norman said:
“Let her talk.”
Susan entered.
She did not apologize for the rag.
She did not mention the spilled food.
She sat across from Chloe with the posture of a woman attending a board meeting.
“Saguaro Crest is in temporary distress.”
Chloe laughed.
“Then get a bank loan.”
“We have bank loans.”
“That seems to be the problem.”
Susan’s jaw tightened.
“The properties are worth substantially more than the debt.”
“Then sell one.”
“The market timing is terrible.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The part where Dad’s farm becomes easier to risk than your property.”
Susan looked at Norman.
“You would have been repaid.”
Norman’s voice remained gentle.
“You told me my daughter might go to prison.”
Susan looked away.
Not denial.
Not yet.
Chloe leaned forward.
“Did you tell him that?”
“Kyle explained the legal situation.”
“There was no legal situation.”
“I repeated what Kyle told me.”
“Did you believe it?”
Susan did not answer.
Chloe felt the room change.
“Did you believe I was detained?”
Susan’s eyes hardened.
“I believed my son was desperate.”
That was an answer.
Just not to Chloe’s question.
Norman whispered:
“You knew.”
Susan looked at him.
“I knew the money was needed for Saguaro Crest.”
Norman’s face collapsed.
“You called me crying.”
“I was crying.”
“About Chloe.”
“I never said every detail was exactly as Kyle described.”
Chloe stared at her.
“You called a frightened father and used my name to make him sign.”
Susan stood.
“I was trying to keep my family from losing twenty years of work.”
Norman stood too.
Slowly.
“My farm is forty years of work.”
Susan looked at him.
For the first time, shame reached her face.
It lasted only a second.
Then she said:
“You have land worth five million dollars and almost no debt.”
Norman’s expression changed.
“That makes it mine.”
Chloe almost smiled.
Susan picked up her purse.
At the door, Chloe asked one more question.
“Where was Kyle yesterday afternoon?”
Susan stopped.
“At a lender meeting.”
“Trying to close Dad’s loan?”
Silence.
Then Susan said:
“You need to ask him why he was willing to risk your marriage for this.”
She left.
Norman looked at Chloe.
“That sounded like a warning.”
It did.
May you like
Because Susan had finally admitted she helped with the lie.
But she was also suggesting Kyle’s motive was bigger than saving her portfolio.
