Page 97 of Tiger Queen
“Login,” he demanded.
“I don’t know the password to his laptop. What do you need from it?”
He picked up the laptop and hurled it across the room. It smashed into the wall and fell to the floor with a clatter of plastic keys. Then Carl pointed at the office laptop that was already on the desk.
“Login to the office computer, then. Or are you gonna lie about that too?”
I did know the password for that computer, so I did as I was told.
“Now login to that donation website. Go Pay Me or some such.”
“GoFundMe?”
“I don’t care what it’s called!” he snapped. “Just fuckin’ do it!”
I went to the website and logged in. The account balance appeared in the top-right corner. Carl chuckled maniacally.
“One-point-two million! Oh baby! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” He fished a piece of paper out of his pocket and slammed it on the desk. “Withdraw it all to that account.”
I stared up at him, too shocked to obey the instructions. “This is about money?”
“Hurry up. I ain’t got all night.”
“This isn’t about the zoo, or the animals, or anything else,” I said incredulously. “This is just about money?”
He waved the gun. “Withdraw the fucking money or I’ll shoot you.”
A trickle of courage filled my chest. “If you shoot me, I can’t transfer the money.” I clicked on the next screen. “It requires the password again.”
Madness sparkled in Carl’s blue eyes as he pressed the gun into my knee. “Didn’t say where I’d shoot ya.”
That small bit of courage disappeared, and I hurried to transfer the money. But after a few clicks I ran into a new roadblock.
“Before withdrawing the money, I have to add this bank account as a new external account.”
“So do it, then.”
I pointed at the screen. “I tried. But it sends a verification email that we have to click on to confirm the new external account. It sent it to Anthony’s email address.”
His jaw clenched. “Then login to his email.”
“I… I don’t know his password,” I stammered.
“LIAR!” he screamed. “You’re a fucking witch. You’ve wrapped my boys around your little finger, whispering poison in their ears so they’ll do whatever you please. I don’t believe for a Carolina minute that you don’t know their passwords.”
Anger rose up inside me in a surprising way. Maybe because I cared about his three sons deeply, and here Carl was accusing me of manipulating them.
“You don’t care about your sons,” I shot back. “You don’t care about anything. You faked your death and didn’t even tell them. You let them believe! And now you sneak back here in the middle of the night to steal some money? Seriously?”
My accusation caught him off guard, and he recoiled from me. “Had to fake it to avoid bankruptcy. Start over fresh somewhere new. The boys didn’t need to know, at least not for a while. Had to get the feds off my ass. They’ve been watching me, undercover agents sneaking around lookin’ for me…”
“Oh right, the feds,” I said sarcastically. “Everyone’s after you. And it’s totally not paranoia. No way.”
“They are after me,” he insisted. “They’re sneaky. Insert agents into every level of my organization. Hell, you’re probably one of them!”
I laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. “Meanwhile, your sons are in tremendous pain because they think their dad is dead. And you’re selfishly worrying about yourself! You’ll come back here to steal a million bucks, but not to tell your sons the truth? What kind of a father are you?”
A dark expression fell across his face. He slammed the laptop closed, unplugged it, and put it under one arm. Then he aimed the gun at me.