Page 61 of Once Upon a Beast

“That’s why I wanted you to come here. It has taken me years to get someone who believed me enough to do some digging to prove I didn’t do this. I wasn’t the one who stole everyone’s money, and now I can prove it.”

I stood up, annoyed that my father was still spouting lies. I had thought he would have been more remorseful after all the years in prison but I could see it wasn’t the case. I had hoped I would find a sliver of the man that I thought he was but he was gone. As I looked and tried to find the man I had admired and wanted to emulate for years, I wondered if he had ever been there.

“Is that why you wanted me to come here? So, you could give me more lies? I’m not going to listen to them. I don’t need to listen to any of this. I came because I needed to tell you how much you hurt me. You were everything to me, growing up. I thought you were this amazing man, but you weren’t. Everything you did, everything you said was nothing but lies. I thought you might be remorseful. I thought you might want my forgiveness, but I can see you haven’t changed and you never will. I’m not going to stand here and talk to you. We have nothing to talk about. I want nothing to do with you. We are done. Good-bye.” I turned and walked towards the door.

“You will stay if you truly love Layla and want to keep her safe.”

His words had my blood going ice cold. I had never thought my father would stoop to the level of threatening Layla but it only proved how little I knew the man. I slowly turned around and walked towards him. I didn’t say anything until I was right next to him. I lifted my finger and pointed it at him and said, “If you so much as think about hurting Layla, I will kill you.”

I didn’t care that I was in a prison with guards and cameras all around me. I didn’t care if anyone heard me or if they took me seriously. I was. No one, especially my father, was going to hurt Layla. My father looked at me with a calm face. I had seen the same face when he was negotiating. It was a look that said he had the upper hand, and in some ways he did. He knew my weakness and he had used it perfectly. I was going to stay; I was going to listen to what he had to say. I felt all my bravado leave me.

“I’m not the one you need to be worried about. I’m not the one who stole from everyone. I’m not the one who manipulated the situation so that I would take the fall. I’m not the one who is manipulating you now,” my father said.

“What are you talking about?” I walked away from him but didn’t leave. I need to move; I need to pace. I wanted to run from the room, but I couldn’t, not until he explained what he meant about Layla.

“I wasn’t the one who embezzled the money. I wasn’t the one who took the people’s money and hid it so no one could find it.”

A short laugh came out of my mouth before I even knew it was there. “Have you become delusional? Has prison affected your mind that much? Is that what you’re trying to get, an insanity defense? It isn’t going to work. You were the only one who had access to the accounts. You were the only one the clients ever talked to. They were all yours.”

“Do you really think I would be that stupid? Did you really think that I would do something so scrupulous not with just some of my clients but all of them? Does that not sound hinky? It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. I would never do that to my clients. I would never do that to you.”

“You don’t care about anyone else but yourself. You would have fled the country and left me if you had the chance.”

“I would have never left you, and I didn’t do this.”

“There were flight plans filed with your plane.” This had all come out at the trial. He had said all this before and it was sad to think he still believed the lies. It was like he had lived with them for so long that he thought they were true. I almost felt sorry for him but it made me more resolved to get away from him and get him out of my life as soon as possible.

“It wasn’t me. It was all a part of the frame-up. I promise you. If you give me five minutes, I will explain it all to you,” my father implored.

“You don’t deserve any of my time. I can’t believe I ever came.” I turned to go again but he stopped me. He was only toying with me and my emotions. He hadn’t said anything that had any weight. I had come to say good-bye. I had done that. I had come to see if he was a threat to my life and I could tell he wasn’t.

“It’s James. He was the one who did it. He gained my trust. He stole the people’s money and made me take the fall for it.”

I turned and looked at my father. He was so calm, as if he really believed what he was saying. It was so absurd that I wanted to laugh at him. “What? Now, I know you’ve officially lost it. That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of. He didn’t even work for your company. He didn't have access to those accounts.”

“He did, because I gave them to him.”

“Why would you do that? What reason would you ever have to do that?”

My father ran a frustrated hand through his hair. It was the same gesture I did when I needed a moment or was trying to come up with the right thing to say. It was a shot in my gut to see it as it reminded me of how alike we were.

“I didn’t realize I had done it until it was too late. He asked to use my computer a few times. He said he wanted to check his stock or some emails. He always had a reason. I didn’t think anything of it. Why would I? It was only when I was sitting in jail and trying to figure out how this happened that I realized it must have been him.”

“Just because you let the man use your computer doesn’t mean he stole money. How can you say that about a man who was your best friend? He stood by you during the trial. He has been nothing but supportive of me through all of this. I understand you might be jealous of what he has, but that doesn’t mean you can try and take him down.”

“He isn’t my friend and he isn’t yours. He did this. I can prove it,” my father said.

“How would he have gotten the access? The passwords?”

“They were all on my computer and I kept them all on a piece of paper in my desk. It went missing once and I thought I had just misplaced it. He must have taken it.”

“Again, that is just your own ego wanting to blame someone else for your mistakes. That isn’t proof.”

“I know, which is why I called you. There is a man by the name of Garrett Hanway. He’s an accountant that comes to help the prisoners sometimes. Helps with taxes, assets, helping their kids, whatever they might need. He also is big into true crime. We got to talking and he was able to look into the records, really look into them. He found the proof.”

“Wouldn’t the Feds or someone else figured this out by now? It’s been ten years,” I said.

I didn’t believe him but there was a part of me that wanted to think that my father was innocent. There was the bigger issue that if this was true and Layla’s father was to blame, things would have gotten worse, not better for me.