Chapter 6 - The Man in the Loft

Walter didn't shout. He reached to the side of the dough-mixer station, grabbed a heavy wooden rolling pin from the rack, and motioned for me to stay behind the stainless steel table.

He took the stairs two at a time, moving with an agility that defied his seventy-eight years.

I didn't stay behind the table. I grabbed a steel bench scraper from the prep island and followed him up the narrow spiral steps, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

The mezzanine office was illuminated by the blue glare of an open laptop screen.

A young man in a gray fleece jacket and dark jeans was kneeling in front of the green fireproof safe beneath Dad’s desk. He had two thick accordion folders tucked under his left arm and was stuffing a stack of cashier's checks into an open leather backpack.

"Julian?" The name slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

The man jerked backward, his head slamming against the bottom edge of the oak desk with a loud, hollow thud. He cursed, dropping the backpack as he scrambled to his feet.

Julian Miller. My cousin. Uncle Greg’s eldest son, who had spent the last three years working as Dad’s "assistant bookkeeper" while studying for his CPA exams.

"Roxanne?" Julian breathed, clutching the back of his head, his face turning pale in the laptop’s glow. "What... what are you doing here? Uncle Tom said you were locked in the basement."

Walter stepped into the office doorway, the heavy rolling pin held loosely at his side. "He’s robbing the trust accounts, Roxanne. Just like his father did in '08."

Julian backed away until his shoulders hit the brick wall behind the desk. "Grandpa, wait. You don't understand. Uncle Tom called my dad forty minutes ago. He told us you were taking Roxanne to the Credit Union first thing Friday morning to freeze the commercial assets."

"And?" Walter growled.

"And my dad co-signed the second mortgage Tom took out on this building last August!" Julian shouted, his voice cracking with panic. "If Roxanne files the revocation deed, the bank accelerates the whole five-hundred-thousand-dollar note! My parents will lose their house in Glen Oaks!"

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