Family Money(17)

She laughed, kissed me again.

The girls were back inside our circle, showing me drawings, paintings, crafts—basically, everything they’d created over the past five days. I did my best to try to pay attention to the story behind each one, but my mind was still on Taylor. While I hated being away from the girls so much, I definitely missed my wife.

Joe returned with my glass of bourbon. “Can I talk to you for a moment, Alex?”

“Of course.”

I followed him out the back sliding door to our small patio. We didn’t have much of a backyard, but there was enough for a playscape. Taylor and I had hoped to buy a bigger house by now with a more spacious yard for the girls, but the promotions I’d been promised had still not come through for me. Taylor had even mentioned trying to go back to work somehow to afford a bigger mortgage, but we weren’t sure how she could possibly pull that off with me out on the road so much. We were both frustrated.

I shut the sliding door behind me and sat in a lawn chair opposite Joe. I could hear a neighbor’s kid playing his music too loud next door. I took a swig of the bourbon, tried to allow the alcohol to drown out my annoyance.

“Long trip?” Joe asked me.

“They’re all long right now, Joe.”

“I can tell it’s wearing on you.”

“Taylor, too. She has it much harder than me.”

“Tough stage of life with little ones at home. Maybe I can help.”

“You already watch the girls several days a week.”

“I’m talking about financially.”

I looked over at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Taylor mentioned you guys had been talking about starting a company of your own. She said you had even discussed numbers to show investors, but you were uneasy about the risk. I’d like to take away that uneasiness.”

“That was just fantasy talk, Joe. I can’t take your money.”

“Why not? I’ve had something set aside from an old client case from way back. We could treat it like an investment.”

“That’s really nice of you, but we’re not talking about a couple hundred thousand dollars. It would take something much more serious to really get this kind of company off the ground in the right way.”

“Millions?”

“Probably,” I said, laughing it off, finishing my bourbon.

“Then count me in.”

My head whipped back around to him. I fully expected to see a joking smile on my father-in-law’s face. But he was looking at me deadpan.

“Joe?”

“Like I said, I’ve had something set aside for a long time. Looking at you and Taylor, the girls, I think it’s time for me to put that money to good use.”

“I’m certain,” I told Craig. “Joe said it was from a client case. Could he have possibly been working with another financial planner?”

“Doubtful. The whole point of wealth management is to create a complete road map for an individual or a family to reach their goals. Leaving millions of dollars out of the picture would be an odd and, forgive for me saying, stupid thing to do. And Joe Dobson was not stupid.”

Craig was right. Joe was incredibly smart. So why was his own financial adviser unaware of the money? I again thought about the encounter last night with the intruder from Mexico. He hadn’t stolen anything. But he was clearly there searching for something. Could it have somehow been connected to the money?





ELEVEN


I left the Frost Bank Tower feeling more uneasy than when I’d entered and walked two blocks north up Congress Avenue to the Littlefield Building, where my software company, Illuminate, occupied the entire fifth floor. At Illuminate, we specialized in online presentation tools for companies that needed creative videos and PowerPoints but didn’t want to start from scratch or hire staff. Upon arriving, I said a quick hello to the receptionist and some of the staff. We currently had a team of forty that included software engineers, designers, sales and marketing teams, and a couple of other support staff. We were in the process of trying to hire a dozen more team members to keep up with the rapid growth. I followed a hallway to the corner, where my glass office sat right next to the office of Mark Groutas, our chief financial officer. Mark and I had gone to college together at UT, where he was on the swim team. Tall and lean, Mark was a brilliant CPA and had masterfully used our initial investment money to grow us quickly.

As usual, his face was buried in his laptop. But he looked up when I entered. “Hey, what’re you doing here? I thought you were going to take the rest of the week off.”

“I am. Just stopped in for a second.”

“Well, it’s good to see you, bud. How’s Taylor doing?”

“Up and down. But you know Taylor. She can always put on a strong face.”

“Yeah. And what about you? You and Joe were super tight.”

“I’m not going to lie, man, I’m feeling crushed. He meant so much to me.”

“To all of us, obviously. Take as much time off as you need. I’ve got things covered around here. We’re all grieving along with you.”

“I appreciate it. Speaking of Joe, can you look up from where he wired us the startup money three years ago?”

“Of course. What’s going on?”