The story tumbled out now through the tears. A truth that Martin Yardas had been living with for eight years. It must have been a relief to say it out loud. To admit it to someone, anyone. A son’s confession.
From the beginning, Martin Yardas had disregarded his father’s investment instructions, which he found strange and out of touch with reality. So instead of filling Merrick’s orders, Yardas had struck out with an investment strategy of his own. He’d lost half of Merrick’s money in the first year.
“I thought, you know, he’d been through so much. And he was in prison. So I could help, right? I’m not stupid, you know?”
“But you lost it? Three hundred and seventy million dollars? How is that possible?”
Yardas explained how: in a panic, he had chased bad money with good. So desperate to cover his losses that he’d made a string of high-risk, high-reward investments. None of which had panned out, each leaving him in an ever-growing hole. All the while lying to his father that everything was on track.
“And you’re telling me that Merrick has no idea that he’s lost almost everything?” Well, everything now. “He hasn’t seen any of the statements or documentation?”
“He’s in prison. What do you think would have happened if it had been discovered? We couldn’t risk it.”
“So Merrick thinks he has a billion dollars?” No wonder Merrick had been so cavalier in the interview.
Yardas nodded in despair. “One point two seven billion.”
Gibson was no expert on the stock market, but to his understanding, anything above a 10 percent annual return was considered an exceptional year. For Merrick to more than triple his investment in only eight years, it would have meant a miraculous run. And all from prison. Instead, he’d been swindled by his broker. Apparently there was room left in the world for poetic justice.
“So he just took your word for it all this time.”
“I was his son.”
Yardas put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. He did it so casually—the way a man might scratch an itch with the tip of a finger—that Gibson didn’t know to react until Yardas lay bleeding on the ground. In shock, Gibson still didn’t move as he struggled to make sense of what had just happened. But then he heard a spluttering, coughing sound. Somehow Yardas was alive, struggling to bring the gun back up to finish the job. Gibson scrambled to his feet and wrested the gun away, then knelt beside the dying man.
Martin Yardas breathed in sandpaper rasps. It was a grisly sight. The bullet had entered at the temple and pinged around the inside of the skull, angry for a way out, until it found its freedom through his left eye socket. Blood pooled around his head like a halo, and he looked up at Gibson with his one good eye.
“I was his son.”
Not knowing what else he could do, Gibson took his hand. “I know.”
“A billion dollars . . . I’m sorry, Dad.”
“I’ll call an ambulance.”
“I was his son.”
Gibson heard a crash and the sound of splintering wood from the front of the house. Footsteps pounded down the hall, and Gavin Swonger came around the corner, gun in hand. It said something that Gibson wasn’t even surprised anymore that Swonger had turned up. Of course Swonger had followed him. Gibson would have kicked himself if he weren’t still in shock over what had just happened. The look on Swonger’s face told the story.
“Goddamn, dog, not playing anymore, are you?”
“Hey, I didn’t shoot him.”
“That’s cool. Did you get it first?”
“What?”
“The money. You get it?”
“Swonger, listen. I know what Lea said, but—”
“One point two seven billion,” Yardas croaked.
Swonger’s brow furrowed. “What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing. You have to listen to me. There isn’t any billion.”
But Swonger wasn’t listening and wasn’t standing still for explanations. Gibson could see how it looked: a dying man, the sting of cordite in the air, and Gibson kneeling over him with a gun. Swonger’s native paranoia had already jumped ahead to the part where Gibson had stolen the money and killed Martin Yardas to silence him. No matter what Gibson said, Swonger would see only betrayal.
“Where’s the money?” Swonger asked, raising his gun.
Gibson wanted to explain, but instinct brought Yardas’s gun up in self-defense. It was a reflex but the wrong one. Swonger let loose, pulling the trigger indiscriminately, gun held sideways like a gangster. Gibson flinched even though nothing happened, knowing he’d be a dead man now if Swonger’s gun had a firing pin. Swonger stopped pulling the trigger and looked down at his gun. Gibson pointed the .357 at Swonger’s chest and cocked the hammer.
“Listen to me.”
Swonger took two steps back and bolted for the front door. Gibson chased after him, more to make certain that he was gone than out of any desire to catch him. At the door, he heard the wailing shriek of tires as Swonger’s Scion roared away.
Good. Let him go. It didn’t matter now.
He went back inside to find that Charles Merrick’s son had died. This wasn’t a part of the country where people called the police over a few gunshots, but he wanted to be long gone just in case. It was time to go. He wiped off the .357 as best he could and dropped it near the body of Martin Yardas. Then he did the same to the computer, picture frames, and door. He’d come a fair piece to stand in this room with a man who had been dead a long time already. Gibson pitied the young man and felt a kinship with him. He had been a fool, yes. A lunatic by the end, almost certainly. But Gibson understood the influence that Charles Merrick had held over his unacknowledged child. How far the son would have gone to prove himself, and how far he had fallen in so doing. Well, it was over now.
And what about Charles Merrick’s other child? Gibson hoped she was safe and hadn’t done anything reckless. Although, in a way, she’d gotten her wish in the end. Perhaps not by her hand, but her half brother had done the job that she’d set out to do. Their father was finally penniless. Nearly anyway.
It was almost funny.
He only hoped that, wherever she was, she appreciated the joke.
Charles Merrick stared at his account balance like an actor stumbling on stage and realizing that he’d learned the lines for the wrong play. He felt them staring at him and knew he should mask his horror, but for the first time in his life he couldn’t hide his real feeling.
One penny.
He had one penny to his name.
Veronica looked over his shoulder and shrieked.
After that, things went to hell at an alarming rate. Bo Huntley snatched back the laptop and saw for himself. Then he snapped shut the laptop’s case. Merrick recovered enough to try and fail to reason with him, forcing a laugh to remind everyone that he was still in control here. It took far more effort than he would have liked.
“This is preposterous,” he said.