Sweet Liar (Candy #2)(9)

“We found this.” Victor pulled a manila envelope out from behind him.

My eyes widened because he said he hadn’t found anything.

“It’s not what we were looking for,” he explained. “But it tells me a lot.”

He reached across the coffee table and held it out to me. I glanced at Jonah, whose raised brows indicated he didn’t know what it was either. The envelope was light in my hand as I took it carefully by the end, making sure not to touch Victor’s fingers.

As I stared at it, Victor watched, waiting for me to open it. The broken seal indicated he already had.

I reached inside and withdrew a folder that held some papers. At first glance, they looked like forms with legal wording, and I spotted my father’s signature at the bottom in a neat script. As I paged through the document, it all looked the same until I got to the last page, where I spotted my name.

I glanced questioningly at Victor.

“Your father put the house in your name. He gave it to you, Candace. The mortgage is paid off, and he left you an account with enough money to pay expenses and taxes for the next several years.”

My gaze flicked from the papers on my lap to Jonah, and then to his father. Was this true? He’d given me the house?

Victor cocked his head to the side. “This isn’t the money trail I was talking about. Your father lived modestly, and from what we can tell, he paid for everything with money he made legitimately. But this document tells me that he knew he’d be found out eventually, and he wanted to make sure you were taken care of before that happened.”

As I tried to grasp what he was saying and what the papers in front of me meant, I put them back in the folder with a suddenly shaky hand. I didn’t want the house. It was our house, not my house. Why would my father do this and not tell me?

“It’s nice, isn’t it? Your father’s concern for you? With you taken care of, his own well-being appears to not worry him.”

I blinked back the tears that filled my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“He’s unwilling to help himself. All he’s said to us so far is that he has nothing to say. He also made sure to add that he wouldn’t change his mind about it.” He looked at Jonah, and then back at me. “But if your father won’t help himself, then maybe you could help him.”

I was tempted to glance at Jonah again. I kept looking to him for support, and I had to stop that. “How?” I asked Victor.

From the corner of my eye, I noted Jonah’s increased restlessness.

Victor was about to speak, but he stopped as his gaze traveled between Jonah and me, something working behind his dark eyes. Then he stood up.

“I’d like to talk to you outside,” he said to Jonah.

Jonah slowly stood to follow his father across the living room and out the front door.

Once they were gone, I sat there gripping the folder, wondering what they needed to discuss outside. More secrets. They had so many of them. My father had them too. I was drowning in them. There were so many, I could hardly keep the truth straight.

Raised voices outside caught my attention. It sounded as if Jonah and his father were arguing. I couldn’t make out the words, but Jonah’s voice was the most prominent, sharp and angry. It went on for some time before the front door swung open and Jonah came through it again. Alone.

He raked his hands through his hair, and he was having trouble looking at me. A moment later, a car door closed outside, followed by a motor starting.

Had his father left? As I watched Jonah’s restlessness, his anxiety ratcheted up my own.

Gradually, like he was walking through mud, he came back into the living room and sat down across from me where his father had been.

When Jonah finally looked at me, his hazel eyes were raw. “You asked how you could help, and my father thinks I should be the one to tell you.”

I gnawed the inside of my cheek. “You don’t seem too happy about that.”

His eyes closed briefly. “I don’t agree with it.”

Jonah gripped his hands together in front of him and leaned forward slightly. “All the things your father should have told you and didn’t? I’m about to. I promise you it’s the truth. Now that you know who I am, I have no reason to lie to you.”

I held still and didn’t scoff because I wanted to hear this. I’d worry about whether I could believe it later.

“Your father wasn’t the only one in our organization living in Glenn Valley. In whatever region we’re in, they like us to live near one another. Because we have to be so secretive, it makes it easier for the families to at least have each other. Where I grew up in Massachusetts, there were two other kids on my street whose fathers did what mine does.” He paused to clear his throat. “Drew’s father works for the organization too.”

My brows shot up. Drew Hoyt?

“That’s why I started school here last spring. Because of Drew.”

“But . . .” I looked at him as it sank in.

“Your father and Drew’s father were in it together, Candy.”

I sat there, blinking in disbelief as the manila folder dropped to the floor. Papers spilled from my hand, fanning out across the carpet.

“Candy?”

I looked at Jonah, trying to make sense of this. “But I hardly ever saw our fathers together, only once or twice a year. Our mothers were friends, but not our fathers.”