The Lies We Tell (14 page)

The joy started to dissipate. This wasn’t about pride — it was about money. “They’re not all worth that, Dad. Most of them will go for a couple thousand.”

“Still, a couple thousand for a week is a pretty good wage. Maybe you should quit the bar work and focus on your art.”

“I can’t. I’m having a good time at the moment, but the past few years I’ve not sold any, and it’s going to take a few years to build up another exhibition. A job is still necessary to cover the mortgage, food and so on.” And pay for your bail if you ever go in again, she thought.

“But that hundred thousand, that’s going to put a big dent in the mortgage.”

The uneasy feeling became solid understanding. Sienna had avoided telling their father who really owned the painting. Sia wondered if she could avoid it as well. “It doesn’t work like that, Dad.”

“Why not?”

“Well, there’s commission to the gallery owner, and taxes and stuff …”

“What? That’s not fair, you did all the work.”

“It wouldn’t be sold if weren’t on exhibition.” Which wasn’t true for that particular painting. “And we all have to pay taxes, Dad. I’m going to have a good year, and yes the mortgage is going to look very good, but it’s not like we’re rich or anything.”

The habitual sourness rose on Frank’s face. “Nice of you to destroy my dream,” he muttered. He took the orange juice and wandered over to join some men at a far table.

Sia sighed. It seemed her involvement with Todd was going to be a minefield, with her and Sienna having to watch everything they said and did around Frank.

She felt tired, weighed down and all of the colour drained out of her day. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep.

She looked at the clock. Six hours until her shift was over. Oh, goodie.

Todd went back to his apartment to grab some books and extra clothes to take back to Oberon. The moment he stepped into his bedroom, he knew it had been a bad decision.

The tussled sheets, the pillows askew, the cuffs lying on the bedside table just brought the sights, sounds and smells of their incredible night flooding back.

After the waiting, he’d thought it would be a great night but he’d been unprepared for the outpouring of passion that Sia inspired in him. He couldn’t get enough of her — the catch of her breath as her arousal built, the way her hips twisted as she sought for a deeper touch, the silky firmness of her pussy surrounding him.

Todd took a deep breath and fought down the response of his body. He didn’t know when he’d see Sia again — he couldn’t spend days walking around with a boner.

To distract himself, he drove back to Oberon and made his first stop the police station. What Sia had told him about the items her father had stolen intrigued him. It was such a strange thing to do.

“Afternoon.” Col looked up from some paperwork and nodded as Todd walked in. “Needed to smell a station again, did you?”

Todd paused. Since Sia had opened his eyes and shown him the truth of his feelings for his father, Todd hadn’t thought about the police force once. Strange, it usually wasn’t far from his mind.

“Actually, I was hoping you could do me a favour. Sia told me about the break-in.”

Col nodded. “Glad to hear it. I’d personally like to clear her name for good with the entire town, so if you can help me talk her into it, that would be great.”

“Not going to happen. It would make her father look bad and she’s never going to go for that.”

Col shook his head. “It never ceases to amaze me, the way families can stick to someone even when that someone is poisoning them.”

“Let’s hope Sia wakes up before Frank does her too much damage.”

“From what I hear, he’s already done enough.” Todd frowned. “I’ve not seen it myself so I can’t act, and Sia won’t talk about it, but the scuttlebutt is that he hits her.”

It felt like every cell in his body had frozen. “He hits her?”

“When drunk. I’d say at the moment she’s probably pretty safe from him.”

Todd clenched his fists. “She might be safe, but Frank won’t be if he lays a hand on her.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

Time to change the subject before he went out looking for Frank Collins. “I won’t. About that favour. Seems that the cops that charged Sia completely botched the investigation, but I don’t suppose they made any detailed notes on what they found at the Collins’s?”

“They did write something. Hold on.” Col disappeared out the back.

Todd took in a long breath and released it slowly. He should have known, after seeing Sienna’s reaction last Friday, that it wasn’t the first time Frank had hit someone. But the idea of anyone hurting Sia seemed so incredible to him.

Why the hell couldn’t Frank see what a bloody treasure he had there?

A shame Frank wasn’t allowed to know he was seeing Sia — maybe the fact her new boyfriend was a cop would stay his hand.

Then Todd wondered if that was why he objected and it wasn’t about him being a Lansing at all.

Col came out bearing a folder. “They didn’t write much, but maybe it would be useful.” He put the folder down on the counter for Todd to see.

There were four dot points in the section to list items recovered. Company seal for Lansing Mining. 2000/2001 financial report for Lansing Mining. File marked ‘Company Records’. File marked ‘Actual’. Under the list was a notation that all had been returned to the owner, accompanied by his father’s signature.

It wasn’t much, but at least he had an idea of what to look for.

“Thanks,” he said. “About the cops that did this…”

“Already reported,” Col said. “Sia might not want us to clear her name but no way should these jerks get away with the damage their — well, I’ll be nice to them and think of it as laziness for now, rather than corruption, but they shouldn’t get away with what they did to her.”

Todd didn’t envy the hell Internal Affairs would put the two through, but they deserved it. He went back home and spent the afternoon filling his mother and Paul in on Sia’s successful show, and it wasn’t until after dinner and Maria had gone to sleep that Todd was free to start searching.

Paul leant against the office door and watched Todd move things aside to access the filing cabinet.

“Watcha looking for?”

“The files that Frank Collins stole. I want to see if they can tell me why.” Todd pulled the first drawer of the cabinet open. It was completely empty.

So was the second. The third had a few files hanging, the fourth was full.

Todd got the files out and went through them. Not one of them matched the brief description in the police report. In fact, none of them related to Lansing Mining at all.

“I’m correct in remembering that Dad used to have lots of Lansing Mining paperwork, right?”

“Absolutely. Didn’t he used to sit down with you Saturday arvos and make you revise it all?”

Todd winced. “Jesus, I’d forgotten about that.” He looked around. “I wonder where all those papers went.”

They weren’t anywhere else in the office. The following afternoon, when Maria was napping, he and Paul went through the old boxes in the garage. There were years of personal financial records, but none for the company.

“I’m guessing that after Dad died, the company came and took all the papers to pass onto the next chairman,” Paul said as they went inside, covered in dust.

“Is Bob Mackie still CEO?” Bob had been his father’s right hand man.

“Sure.”

“Then I guess tomorrow I’m going into the office.”

He’d been so caught up in the search that it was only as he went to bed that he realised he hadn’t heard from Sia since the morning before. He fell asleep both sad and aroused.

Todd called Lansing Mining headquarters first thing in the morning to make sure Bob Mackie could see him. An appointment was made for midday and so Todd soon found himself pulling the car into the familiar car park in Lithgow.

From the outside the building still looked the same two-storey concrete construction, but inside the boom in business was immediately clear. The wooden floors were polished, everything shone and a new fountain gave the lobby a soothing aura.

Bob’s office hadn’t changed however — the huge wooden desk and piles of papers on every surface were just how Todd remembered.

Bob himself had got greyer and stouter over the past ten years, but his smile was as warm as ever as he shook Todd’s hand.

“Well, strike me dead if you aren’t the image of your old man.”

“So I’ve been told,” Todd said. Who had been the last person to say that? He remembered — Frank Collins. Interesting. “Not in every way, however.”

“How is life in the police force?” Bob gestured to the lounge over the side of the room. Todd sat at one end, Bob at the other.

“Better than it would have been if I’d followed Dad’s plan and come here. No offence.”

Bob laughed. “Always knew this wasn’t your destiny. Tried to tell your father that but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Thanks for the effort.”

“So, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

Todd took a deep breath. “After Dad died, did you come and take all his company papers?”

He noted Bob’s smile dim a little. “Yes, I did. Why?”

“I’m looking for two particular files. One was called ‘Company Reports’, the other ‘Actual’. Green floating files. Don’t suppose you remember them?”

Bob blinked and then the smile completely died. “Yes, I remember them.”

Todd forced his body to remain calm when he wanted to surge forward. “What were they about?”

Bob’s eyes flicked around the room, he stared at the floor for a long moment, then nodded and looked at Todd. “I think you’re old enough to know this now.”

Everything in Todd told him the news he was going to hear wasn’t good. “What?”

“Todd, your dad was stealing from Lansing Mining. Our estimate is that over three years, he embezzled seventy-five grand.”

Todd slumped back in the seat. “What?”

“Those two files you’re looking for related to it. One was the records that he was feeding to the company, the other the actual records of where the money was coming from and where it was going. He was meticulous.”

“My God. I don’t understand.”

“I’d suspected for some time, but it took a forensic accountant a couple of months to work out what was going on. When I had the proof, I went to confront your father. It was on July 7, 2003.”

“The day he died.” Todd’s eyes widened. “Shit, is that what killed him? You confronting him, not the robbery?”

“At first he was very confident, blowing me off, saying I was a fool. But then I showed him what I had and I’d never seen him so devastated. When I got his papers after his death and found the files, I realised why — he’d been so sure he couldn’t be caught.”

Now it was Todd who stared at the floor. His father had been stealing, and it was the stress of realising that he had been caught and his entire life was about to be destroyed that had killed him.

Then Todd’s brain kicked into gear and he looked up at Bob. “Those two files were how Dad kept track of what he was doing?” Bob nodded. “That must be why they were stolen.”

“Stolen?”

“Do you remember the robbery, a couple of weeks before Dad died?”

Bob nodded. “He was really stressed about it.”

“Well, what was stolen was a company seal, financial reports and those two files.”

“Holy shit. Your father must have got wind that I was investigating and tried to get rid of the evidence.”

It made sense. Except for Sia’s conviction that her father and his hadn’t known each other. But they must have.

Todd Lansing had organised for Frank Collins to steal the incriminating evidence and probably to get rid of it. Except Frank had panicked over the import of what he was doing, hesitated and then it had been too late.

“Holy shit indeed,” Todd said.

Outside at the car, he sat in the drivers seat and stared at the hood for a long time. Then he got out his phone.

Sia answered immediately. “Hey, you. Great timing, I’m on my lunch break. I’m so sorry I haven’t called you. I’m trying to work out what to do.”

He loved the sound of her voice. “Can I see you tonight?”

A pause. “I’d make a crack about you being horny, except I can tell from the tone of your voice this isn’t about sex.”

Even with his life rearranging itself minute by minute, she could still make him smile. “I’ve just found out some news about my dad and I’m not sure how to process it.”

“Of course. Where shall we meet? Where are you at the moment?”

“Lithgow.”

“Dad knows people there. How about we meet at Coxs River Bridge?”

“Now?”

“Of course. I’ll cry off work, it will be fine.”

Her concern was already making him feel better. “No, you shouldn’t do that. You need your leave to deal with your Dad. I can wait until tonight.”

“Alright. I finish work at seven. I’ll go straight to the studio. See you there?”

“Absolutely.”

Sia hung up and Todd smiled. Life was so much easier when you had someone to share the ups and downs with.

Sia grabbed a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses on her way out of the club. At the studio, she uncorked the wine and then let her hair down, pulling her shirt out of her waistband and kicking off her shoes.

A knock at the glass door — Sia stopped herself and controlled her excitement before she answered. Todd wasn’t in the mood to have a horny woman launch herself at him.

He smiled as he came in but Sia could see the confusion beneath it. She wrapped her arms around his neck, Todd hauled her close to him and she gave him silent comfort.

“Come.” She pulled him over to the table and pushed him onto a seat. Then she curled up in his lap, hugging him again so he’d feel her concern and care.

Todd pressed his nose against the top of her head, took a deep breath and sighed. “This is just what I needed after today.”

Sia smiled, delighted that her presence alone could help him. “Tell me what’s going on.”

It was a short story, and all the more terrible because of it. By the end, Sia was holding Todd tight.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “How do you feel?”