House of Glass (9 page)

And there it was. Just as he’d told her, just as he’d written on the little slip of paper:
$10,082.16.

Dan leaned close, his hot breath on her face. Terrence looked away, clasping his hands on his lap. “What the fuck,” Dan whispered, too low for Terrence to hear. “That’s not enough. I want all of it. I know there’s more.”

How did he
know?
With every new revelation, each bit of evidence that Dan had somehow wormed his way even more deeply into their lives, she found it more excruciating to be near him. She wanted to jump out of the chair and run. Freedom was tantalizingly close—he couldn’t hurt her here, she could be out the door and gone in seconds.

And then he would return to her home. Her family. Where he could take his fury out on them.

Jen pressed her knees together, trying to contain her horror. She nodded, her mouth dry. “If you could...if I could see the recent transaction detail,” she said, hearing the tremor in her own voice.

Terrence clicked obligingly, and after a very brief pause the screen populated with the recent transactions. The monthly interest on the thirty-first. There, down at the bottom, the January adjustment she made every year, transferring the accrued interest into checking to keep the balance right at seventy thousand.

And at the top, dated three days ago, a withdrawal of sixty thousand dollars.

Chapter Eleven

“That one,” Jen said hoarsely. “At the top. The withdrawal...”

“Yes.” Terrence moved the cursor over the numbers. “That would have been, let’s see, Monday. Right here in the Hastings West Plaza branch, and it looks like it was also taken in the form of a cashier’s check.”

“But I don’t...” Ted, dear God, what had Ted done, what had he been thinking? She checked her accounts every Sunday night—he knew that, he’d teased her about it for years. He said he could set the clocks by her. He had to have known she would look this Sunday, only two days away.

Ted had withdrawn the money four days ago. From this very branch, for God’s sake—what had he been doing here? It was nowhere near the BMW dealership, that was for sure.

A flash of goldenrod, a memory of perfume. Sarah Elizabeth Baker with her long white neck, the smooth rounded tops of her breasts in that dress she wore to the holiday party.
Thx tons, Thursday 2pm Firehouse xoxoxo.
Ted could have withdrawn the money, planned to meet her...

But no, that was crazy. Ted had held her last night, had sworn to her that he wasn’t having an affair. And even if he had lied, even if he was planning to leave Jen to be with Sarah, he wouldn’t do it like this. Ted was many things, among them impetuous and passionate, but he was first and foremost a family man. He would never destroy everything they’d built together, not this way.

Terrence cleared his throat. He was looking at her oddly. “Is there...something I can help with?” he asked lamely. Under the desk, Dan put his hand on her leg and squeezed, hard enough to hurt, his fingers digging into the soft flesh behind the knee. She was mucking this up, raising suspicion, doing exactly what he had warned her about.
It’s your family that’s going to pay.

“I’m sorry,” she said, forcing a smile to her lips. “If I could just have a second.”

She took another look at the accounts and did some quick math in her head. Excluding Livvy’s account, the rest added up to about four thousand. Another fifteen from the line of credit, though she was uncertain about whether she could do that all in one day. As for the rest, the easiest thing would be a wire transfer from their investments, but it would take a day for the funds to clear.

The thought filled her with dread. Could she convince Dan to give her the extra time? How would they bear another night in the basement? But there wasn’t any other choice.

“Thank you,” she said to Terrence, forcing herself to stay calm. “All right, here’s what I’d like to do. I’ll take what’s in the account now in a cashier’s check. Then I’m going to have some funds wired from an investment account today, and I’ll come back to withdraw that. When is the earliest I could make the second withdrawal?”

“If the funds clear by 1:00 p.m. tomorrow, you can withdraw them after that. We’re open until 5:30 p.m.”

Terrence busied himself with the paperwork. While Jen waited, she stared at his nameplate, reading the letters of his name over and over. She tried to ignore Dan, to pretend she was alone here, doing some routine transaction on an ordinary day.

It seemed to take forever, but finally Terrence excused himself for a moment and returned with the check, which he slipped into an envelope.

“May I help you with anything else today?” he asked, handing the envelope to Jen.

“No, thank you, that will be all,” Jen said, standing and offering him her hand.

“All right. Thank you, Mrs. Glass. Mr. Glass. Have a great day.”

As Dan shook Terrence’s hand, Jen was already walking unsteadily toward the door, suddenly desperate for fresh air. On the sidewalk next to her car she paused, and Dan almost ran into her.

“What the fuck—” he started, but she held up her hand to silence him.

His face was inches from hers. Half a dozen black hairs protruded from his nostrils. He had a mole on his eyelid and flecks of gold sparked in his otherwise unremarkable brown eyes.

“How did you know how much money was in the account?” she demanded.

He was already shaking his head before she got the words out. “None of your fucking business. Give me the check.”

She handed it to him, and he folded the envelope and put it in his pocket without looking at it. “Okay. That’s a down payment. Now all you need to concern yourself with is getting the rest of it to me.”

“All right. I’ll get it. I just need to make a few calls. I have to transfer the funds.”

Dan’s face was mottled red with anger. “Do it now.”

“I would, if I could, I swear to you. But it takes a day to wire the funds. There’s no way to get it today, by law.”

Dan turned away from her, his fists clenched, and for a moment Jen thought he was going to hit the parking meter. Instead he seized her upper arm and dragged her to the passenger door. “Get in.”

Jen did, barely managing to get her legs in before he slammed her door. By the time he came around and got in the driver’s side, he was breathing hard. He sat rigidly for a moment and then slammed the steering wheel with his hand. The car shook from the impact.

“God
damn
it. The price just went up. Double. I want a hundred fifty.”

“I’m not sure if I can—”

“Call them. Now.” He had the gun in his hand; he must have gotten it out of his jacket when he got in the car.

Jen didn’t believe he would shoot her in the car, in the middle of the day, right here in depressing downtown Hastings, but she wasn’t about to test him. When he handed her his phone she was shaking so badly she nearly dropped it. It was warm from his pocket, the screen blurred with a greasy smudge.

She found the phone number on the internet and dialed, staring at the console between them, not wanting to see the gun he was holding in his lap.

An assistant answered. That was a stroke of luck; Jen wasn’t sure she could have pulled off the transaction if her broker had answered, with his friendly inquiries about Ted and the kids, questions that Jen doubted she could have managed in her current state.

But the young woman who took the call sounded bored as she went through the authentication and the details of the transaction. Jen could hear her fingers on the keyboard as she keyed in the amounts.

“The funds will wire by eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, thank you.”

“Thank you for your business today, Mrs. Glass, and I hope I have provided you with excellent service. Have a great day.” She hung up before Jen could respond.

“So?” Dan asked impatiently.

Jen stared at the phone, the number disappearing from the caller ID. “It’s taken care of. They’re wiring it in the morning. We can pick it up tomorrow afternoon.”

Dan nodded curtly and started the car, saying nothing. He let it idle for a moment before backing out of the parking space. He made the turn at the next stoplight, but instead of going around the block and heading back the way they’d come, he drove straight through the heart of town.

They passed vacant department stores and shuttered shop windows. At a green light, they had to wait while a group of young men in enormous puffy coats and sneakers took their time ambling across the street. A plastic bag rode a wind current and rested for a moment against the windshield before drifting away.

Jen wondered if Dan was lost, if she should tell him he was going the wrong way. If he was her father’s crony, if he lived up in Murdoch, he wouldn’t know his way around. He might have memorized the route to the bank, but not the reverse directions.

She was about to say something when it suddenly occurred to her where Dan was going. Surely not...there wasn’t any way he could know. Was there? She waited, holding her breath, thinking that at any moment he’d take another turn and start heading back west.

But no. They passed the Kmart, the outer limit of Jen’s childhood, the farthest she was allowed to ride her bike alone. Down Lowry Street, past the narrow wedge of a public park, where even in the middle of the day, in the biting cold, she could see a few homeless men sleeping on the benches. Past the turnoff to the elementary school, where her mother—in a brief happy phase when she’d had the occasional weekday off—had once been a playground monitor.

“This isn’t the way,” Jen finally blurted, when they were almost to her old street. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. But Dan slowed, until the car was barely doing twenty in the rightmost lane. A car honked and passed them on the left.

“It’s not even there anymore,” he said irritably as though it was her idea to come here. “It’s nothing but a parking lot now. A shitty one.”

He turned on Russell. That’s what the road used to be called, anyway, before they bulldozed the half dozen run-down little houses arranged in a crooked loop off what used to be the route to the paper mill. The mill had been shuttered a long time ago, and now there was a shabby strip mall anchored by a dollar store and a Pet Express. Not even a quarter of the parking lot was full.

Jen had been here exactly once in the past decade, propelled by curiosity and the wistful mood that used to accompany the anniversary of her mother’s death. Tanya had told her the old house was gone, but she still wasn’t prepared for the way the parking lot obliterated even the contours of the old neighborhood. She’d driven slowly along the Dumpsters and loading bays in the back of the mall, looking for proof that what was once Russell Street lay beneath the asphalt. Finally she’d managed to find the approximate spot by looking out into the field beyond and lining up landmarks with her memory—the barn that still stood next to a clump of black walnut trees, the stagnant drainage pond. Development, it seemed, had not reached very far into the outer edge of Hastings.

No one could argue that the demolishing of those houses was any great loss. So Jen hadn’t been prepared for the emotional turmoil that visit invited. She’d ended up having to pull over near what was once the far end of Russell Road, where a long-ago neighbor kept a pair of mangy dogs on wire leads tied to trees, and vomit onto the pavement. She’d wiped her mouth off and driven home, and never mentioned the trip to anyone.

Dan drove past the parking lot, where the road dead-ended at the gravel turnaround in front of a cattle guard. Jen doubted that anyone grazed cattle here anymore. It was only a matter of time until the field ended up being studded with cheap little tract homes. She hoped Dan would just turn around and head back, but he pulled the car up so close that the front fender was almost touching the gate and the tires rested on the bars of the cattle guard, and let the engine idle.

“Why are we stopping?” Jen asked.

“I just thought you might need a reminder.” Dan sounded even angrier than he had outside the bank. “This is what you come from. Everything you did, trying to hide it, it don’t change anything. You’re still from the wrong side of town and you always will be.”

“Did my dad tell you we used to live here?” Jen’s teeth were chattering, even though the interior of the car was still warm. “Did he tell you he abandoned us? Took off and never sent any child support? That when my mom got sick, all he ever cared about was whether he could get his hands on her money?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Dan said. “I don’t give a shit about your dad. Just you. I just want you to see that I know you’re nothing. And you screw up and don’t get my money, you’ll end up worse off than if you still lived here. I’ll make sure of it.”

“I won’t screw up. I promise.”

“You think I’m some dumbass who can’t count,” Dan continued, as though she hadn’t even spoken. “You think I don’t have what it takes to pull something like this off, that I’ll settle for a few bucks when I know you’ve got a lot more stashed away. You’re wrong. Dead wrong,” he repeated as he finally put the car in Reverse and started backing into a turn.

Neither he nor Jen spoke as he drove back the way he’d come, past the Kmart and gas stations, back down Lowry and over the bridge on 17th.

The farther they got from what had once been Jen’s home, the more the panic receded. She still didn’t know how he knew: Sid, maybe, but maybe there was a much simpler explanation. One of those online search services—they could have found out all kinds of things about her background. For fifty bucks he could have had all her prior addresses.

By the time they crossed the ravine, heading back into Calumet, Jen had managed to convince herself that Dan was just trying to push her buttons, using whatever thin threads he’d been able to discover in a basic exploration of her history. She didn’t have to react. She didn’t have to let paranoia and fear take over. She should be grateful that at least they hadn’t raised suspicion at the bank. She should reassure Dan that everything was taken care of.

Maybe she’d been forced to endure one too many spikes in her adrenaline, one too many rushes of pure terror, because deep inside her, the fear was beginning to harden into something else. Being forced to leave her family behind in the home she loved, at the mercy of an armed psycho, had altered something inside Jen. She had no idea how Dan had known about the account. No idea if her father had planted the seed that led to this disaster. No idea what Ted had done with the money. And suddenly, those things didn’t matter.

At the edge of her mind were the things she could not think about—her children in the basement, her husband with his secrets, the life she had worked so hard for, that she had convinced herself could change things. Things, she now saw, that could never be changed. She would never be able to shed her past.

But now all the cards were on the table, and she had nothing else to lose. And the realization brought a simmering, dangerous rage.