Second Time Around (23 page)

Halley placed her hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter and Alec sent her a chagrined look then returned his attention to Casey.

“And if I made you a banana split?” he asked.

“You’d get a ten,” Casey confirmed.

Alec returned his gaze to Halley.

“It appears that ice cream weighs heavily with the judges’ scores. What would it take for you to completely accept my apology?”

Across the room Cassie gave a long grunt while standing on one spot.

“You can change Cassie’s nappy,” Halley suggested.

“Great,” Alec said with forced enthusiasm.

Two hours later Alec came out from Em’s room after giving her a goodnight kiss, hoping that all the children would sleep through the night. As he watched Halley leave Lily’s bedroom door ajar he knew that it was just wishful thinking.

“Now what’s the great news you have to tell me?” Halley kept her voice soft so she didn’t disturb the children.

“I found your missing bank account. Come see.” Alec headed down the stairs with an excited Halley on his heels. When he got to his office he gestured to the notebook and debit card on his desk.

“It’s been so long that I had forgotten about the notebook.” Halley picked it up and started flicking through the pages. She looked up and caught his eye. “Where on Earth did you find it? I thought I’d looked everywhere.”

“It was tucked in the back of the framed photo of you and Krystal.”

Halley pressed the notebook against her chest.

“I never thought to start pulling things apart. What made you decide to look there?”

“The frame fell off the tallboy when I closed the drawer and when I checked to see that the photo was okay I found it,” Alec confessed.

“Is the photo okay?” Halley asked with concern. “It’s my only copy.”

Alec felt bad that he’d allowed his temper to damage something that was so precious to her even if it hadn’t been intentional.

“The photo’s fine,” he assured her “I’ll scan it before I put it in a new frame so you’ll always be able to make copies.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Alec took the chair in front of the desk, wiggled the mouse and his laptop’s screensaver was replaced by the bank’s website.

“I tried to call up the bank account earlier but I can’t get access because the bank sends you a text code you have to use to login. I guess the text would have been sent to Krystal’s cell phone which means without it you’ll have to go to the bank in person to get access to the account.”

“No. I have Krystal’s phone,” Halley told him eagerly. “Her phone was brand new and she had a better plan than I did so I kept hers and got rid of mine. Wait a minute. I’ll get it.”

Before she had finished speaking she was out the door. Less than a minute later she was back, phone in hand. Halley entered the code to unlock the phone then checked her text messages.

“Here it is,” she said, barely concealing her excitement as she handed the phone to Alec.

Alec rapidly typed in the code then pressed enter. The screen changed and they were presented with the most recent bank balance.

“That can’t be right,” Halley said, frowning at the screen. “There’s less than six thousand dollars there.” Then a thought occurred to her. “Krystal said I couldn’t get the money out until I turned thirty because it was in a term deposit.” She gave Alec a nudge. “Check to see if there is a term deposit linked with the account.”

Alec did and there wasn’t.

“I don’t understand,” Halley said, flicking her gaze between him and the screen. Alec had a sneaking suspicion where the money had gone but he wouldn’t dare suggest it without proof. Wanting Halley to be seated when the evidence presented itself, Alec rolled the chair back and tugged her onto his lap.

“There’s bound to be an explanation,” he said, opening the transaction history. He wrapped one arm around Halley’s waist and used his other hand to flick back through the statement pages.

The most recent statements consisted of interest payments from the bank. Before that regular weekly deposits of a hundred dollars appeared then a few pages further back Alec found what he was looking for.

Almost two and a half years ago significant withdrawals started appearing and continued over a period of eight months. The date of the final withdrawal that essentially wiped out Halley’s account was shortly before Krystal and Paul had moved into the newly built house next door to Alec’s.

He pulled Halley against his chest and her expression in profile told him that she had reached the same conclusion: Krystal had taken her money to fund the construction of her house.

“I don’t believe it,” Halley whispered. “My own sister stole from me.”

Alec rubbed her back as she stared disbelievingly at the screen.

“I don’t believe it,” Halley repeated in a harsher tone of voice. “Chantelle? Absolutely. But Krystal?” She swore then shook her head. “How could she have done this?”

She stared unseeingly at the ceiling for a several long seconds then twisted on Alec’s lap and met his gaze.

“You know, it all makes sense now,” she said bitterly. “Paul was the manager of a bottle store and Krystal stopped working shortly after she became pregnant with Cassie. I always wondered how they could afford to buy land and build in this area on his income. I thought he had come into an inheritance that was enough for the mortgage repayments to be low enough for Krystal to become a stay at home mother. Now I know better.” She gave a laugh that held no humour. “I paid for it all.”

Alec agreed with her assessment of the situation but decided for the sake of Halley’s memory of her sister to play devil’s advocate.

“It looked like they had started to pay you back,” he said with a nod of his head towards the screen, indicating the regular deposits.

Halley checked the screen then looked away.

“It explains a lot,” she muttered. She eyed her clenched fists in her lap then looked at Alec. “Did you know that before Krystal died she suggested that when I turned thirty I should just withdraw a hundred dollars a week from my savings?” Halley locked her eyes on the screen. “I thought it was stupid at the time when I’d need the money to set up a home for me and my baby but now I see her reasoning. If I’d taken out more than that I’d wipe out my account.”

Halley lurched off the chair and Alec watched as she stomped to the door and gave a frame a solid kick.

“Those payments they made would never be enough to reimburse me,” she snarled then gave the door frame another kick “I would have loaned them some of it if they had asked. Why didn’t they ask?” Another frustrated kick.

Alec was beginning to wonder whether to worry for the door frame or the state of Halley’s foot inside her fleecy slipper. He decided he was more concerned that the children would hear the noise and use it as an excuse to get out of bed. He stood up and pulled her against him.

“Hey,” he soothed, dragging her back another step as Halley kicked out at the door again. Her foot missed and she turned around in his arms and clung to him.

“My own sister,” she wailed in a mixture of disbelief and anguish. Not knowing what to do, Alec started rubbing her back. Not ready to be comforted, Halley pushed away and gave the doorframe another kick.

“I just thought of something else. Krystal’s phone, the TV with surround sound and their bedroom suite were bought after the house was built,” she said angrily. Her foot kicked out again and the doorframe creaked. “They didn’t just spend my money to put an expensive roof over their heads but also to buy stuff they wanted.” She spun around to look at him. “I feel like I’ve been kicked in the guts.”

Alec couldn’t think of anything he could say to make things better. The evidence was sitting there on an LED screen in front of them. Halley’s eyes were wild and he knew she needed to calm down. He stepped in front of the screen to block her view of it. If Halley had another look at the balance she might take it out on the doorframe again and he didn’t think the frame could take much more.

Suddenly all the anger seemed to vanish and Halley dropped into the chair.

“I should’ve taken over the account when Chantelle no longer had a legal hold over me,” she said, defeated.

Something that had been bothering Alec came to mind.

“Hang on a moment. I thought you said that Krystal dropped out of high school and got two jobs to have enough to support you both.”

“She did,” Halley said then sat up in the chair crossly. “Are you trying to tell me that Krystal felt entitled to my money because of that?”

Alec scooped up the notebook and waved it at her.

“No. What I am saying is at that time you had access to more money than most people see during their whole working lives. Why would she work herself so hard when you both could have been living in luxury?”

Despite the situation she was in, Halley smiled wryly.

“It was due to complete ignorance on our part.”

Alec’s brow furrowed.

“I don’t understand.”

Halley sighed.

“When the first movie was a success and I started earning incredible amounts of money for the second Grandma was worried that I’d lose sight of its value. She was also concerned that Chantelle would eventually turn up and channel every dollar I earned to her own bank account. We knew that was inevitable so she had Krystal open an account because by then she was eighteen and not considered a minor which meant Chantelle couldn’t get access to it. I had signing rights and each payday I would transfer all my money to that account.”

“Why didn’t you put all the money directly into the account Krystal set up?”

“Because then Chantelle would find out about it. This way it looked like I regularly withdrew everything and spent up large, on what I have no idea but she believed it.” Halley shrugged. “I guess she thought I was a chip off the old block.

“Anyway, when Chantelle descended upon us Grandma had Krystal put everything in a five year term deposit and told us that the money couldn’t be taken out until the time was up. We believed we couldn’t touch it under any circumstances so we didn’t even try. Instead we made do with what we had; it wasn’t much but we managed.

“By the time the five years were up Krystal had met Paul and was keen to move to Australia to be with him. I withdrew enough funds to see her settled and to repay the loan I’d accumulated for my teaching degree. I then found myself dipping into the account for all sorts of things and by the end of the year I realised I’d managed to spend close to two hundred thousand dollars.”

Alec raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I know,” Halley said self-deprecatingly. “I was turning into Chantelle.”

Since the sum had included a generous hand out to Krystal and payment for her education, Alec didn’t agree but he kept quiet.

“The thought of turning into Chantelle frightened me enough to ask Krystal to open a new account in Australia in my name, giving her signing rights. There was a bit of fussing around to do that but Krystal sorted it out. When I transferred the money I told her to put it all on a revolving term deposit. I then said that the money was only to be used for emergencies and asked her to stall me before I could make any withdrawals to give me time to come to my senses.”

“So you lived like a proper student after that?”

Halley tucked a lock of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear then gave him an embarrassed smile.

“Not exactly. Before I transferred the money to Australia I worked out how much it would cost to finish off my degree and held enough back to cover it,” she confessed.

“Why shouldn’t you?” Alec asked. “You’d earned it after all.”

Halley shrugged again.

“I don’t know. I guess it was because of the way Grandma struggled and refused to let me buy her anything to make her life easier. She had brought us up to make do.” Halley looked thoughtful for a moment. “Looking back I think she did that because she had what she needed and she knew that if anything happened to her Chantelle would take everything for herself. She was right about that,” Halley added darkly.

Alec gestured to the chair Halley was sitting on.

“Do you mind if I sit there? There’s something I want to check.” They swapped places and Alec rapidly flicked back through eight years of statements to when the account was first opened.

“What are you doing?” Halley leaned against the doorframe for support when she saw that he was going through the statements from the beginning. It looked like Alec was going to be there for a while. Now that she had gotten past her initial anger she suddenly felt drained of energy.

“You said earlier that you had asked Krystal to make access to the money difficult for you. How many times before you found yourself pregnant did you ask for money?” Alec asked instead of answering her question.

“I never asked for any,” Halley said, yawning. She frowned at the back of Alec’s head as he continued to study the screen. He could perform as many post-mortems as he liked on her financial situation but it wasn’t going to bring the money back.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced abruptly. She’d had enough and just wanted to go to sleep.

Alec pushed his foot against the side of the desk so his chair would spin around then stood up.

“Are you okay?” He drew her into his arms and gave her a hug. Halley breathed in the comforting scent of him along with faint traces of the aftershave he had slapped on that morning and from his shirt, the laundry powder she used.

“Give me a few years and I’ll come right,” she grumbled.

Alec kissed her cheek and smiled into her hair as he gave her a squeeze. After several seconds Halley reluctantly pulled away.

“Are you going to come up to bed too?”

Alec suddenly remembered that he had a reason for wanting to stay.

“You go on up. I’ll be up shortly,” he promised. “There’s just something I want to check on first.”

“All right. G’night.”

She gave him a peck on the cheek and left the room. As she walked down the hallway towards the stairs she heard Buddy whining from behind the laundry door. His food dishes were kept on the floor in there and she guessed he’d dropped one of his ever present tennis balls so he could eat then had managed to nose the door shut in his attempt to retrieve it from where it had rolled.

“You silly goose,” she scolded affectionately as she opened the door. Instead of coming out as she had expected Buddy trotted to the other door which led outside and waited expectantly.

“Okay but make it quick. It’s cold out there.” Halley opened the door and Buddy scrambled out. He barked once and she leaned out in time to see his pale form sprint around the corner. “Great,” she muttered, pulling the door shut so she wouldn’t freeze.

As she waited for Buddy to return, Halley decided that she could now contribute the money from the sale of the Krystal and Paul’s house towards Alec’s mortgage; no, their mortgage, she corrected, without guilt. After all, it appeared that she had contributed most of the money for Krystal and Paul’s house.

Alec had asked once what she planned to do with the money and she had told him that she intended to keep the money aside for Casey, Corey and Cassie’s expenses. He hadn’t brought it up again despite Halley knowing how much he silently stressed over his mortgage even though she knew he would deny it if asked.

She now realised how impractical and idealistic she had been with her initial plan. Trying to quantify how much it cost to look after the children had been giving her a headache. Did she deduct a set amount for food or work out the fraction of the grocery bill they consumed? What about board? Electricity? The number of rolls of toilet paper they went through?

In every way that counted, Krystal had made the decision easy for her. She would deposit all the money from the sale of the house into the floating mortgage that Alec had added her name to for household expenses and all the children would be treated equally. The tension drained from Halley’s shoulders and she sighed with relief as she pulled out her phone to make the transfer.

She wouldn’t tell Alec, she decided as she tapped in the amount. She’d surprise him.

A low woof from Buddy outside the laundry door informed Halley of his return. She waited for Buddy to pick up the tennis ball before opening the door because she didn’t want to let in any more cold air than she had to.