Blue Ridge Hideaway. Cynthia Thomason

eyes widened. “Jeez, Pop, I only lent you three thousand to start up that business last year. Did you get twenty grand for it?”

      “Of course not. That was just my asking price.” Clancy’s eyebrows came together in an insolent gesture. “I ended up getting only fifteen thousand.”

      Dorie could sense the wheels turning in Bret’s head. After pausing a moment, he said, “And out of that fifteen thousand, you owed me three and Dorie five?” At least Bret was remembering his math correctly.

      “And I earned every cent of it,” she said. “Your father never would have sold the Crab Trap if I hadn’t come in there and made a deal with him to turn it into a presentable establishment that would appeal to buyers.”

      “What exactly did you do?” Bret asked.

      “A whole lot more than any other so-called waitress would have done. I used my special recipes to bring in crowds. I changed the advertising so he’d attract a better clientele, revised the menu to include healthier food and kids’ meals. Handed out coupons all over the area so we’d attract the few tourists who actually stopped on Winston Beach.”

      She looked at Clancy and was gratified to see that he was listening and didn’t appear ready to argue. “Basically I was his nutritionist, marketer and public relations department. In addition to all that, I scrubbed years’ worth of old grease off the walls,” she added.

      “You did all that for a waitress’s salary?” Bret said.

      “No. I’m not that gullible. What I asked in return was a regular job as the waitress with salary and tips, and a percentage of the selling price up to five thousand dollars. Clancy and I agreed that he would keep anything over five grand. At that time, five thousand was what I needed.”

      “Okay. Sounds fair enough,” Bret said. “Did you get this agreement in writing?”

      She fished in the pocket of the jacket beside her on the bench and produced a wrinkled envelope. After removing a one-page document which she smoothed over the surface of the table, she said, “Check it out for yourself.” She pointed to the financial terms and then to her signature and Clancy’s at the bottom. “We both signed it.”

      Bret studied the paper and then looked at his father. “That’s your handwriting, Pop,” he said. “This isn’t the fanciest contract in the world, but I think it would hold up in court.”

      Clancy crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “Whose side are you on?”

      “I’m on the side of what’s right. Did Dorie fulfill her part of this contract like she says?”

      Clancy stubbornly stared into space for several uncomfortable seconds before finally, almost negligibly, nodding his head. It wasn’t a definitive admission, but he wasn’t denying Dorie’s story.

      “Her contribution helped you sell the place?”

      “I suppose.”

      “You know darned well it did,” she said.

      Bret shrugged. “Then you owe her, Pop. And you owe me three grand. That was the deal we made when I lent you the money.” He waited for his father’s reaction, and when the old guy didn’t so much as blink, he said, “And funny thing, Pop, when you arrived here, I asked you about the Crab Trap and you told me there had been a kitchen fire and you lost everything.”

      “I might have said that,” Clancy mumbled. “But I was just stalling for time before I paid you back.”

      Bret looked down as if he was used to this kind of scenario from his father. “You’ve got the money, right? I mean you obviously didn’t have it in your pocket a few minutes ago when Dorie asked for it, but you’ve got it somewhere, don’t you?”

      Clancy stared blankly.

      Dorie bit her bottom lip and tried not to squirm. What would she do if Clancy didn’t have the money? There was no doubt he was a weasel, but even a weasel couldn’t lose fifteen thousand dollars in a little over a week. Could he?

      “Pop?”

      Bret’s gaze zeroed in on his father’s eyes under the ledge of Clancy’s bushy white brows. Clancy shifted away from his son’s stare.

      “The money’s in your room, isn’t it?” Bret said. “Or safely in a bank somewhere?”

      Tense seconds ticked by until Clancy fisted his hands and made a sound between a moan and a snarl. “Not exactly.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “I had it for a while.”

      Skepticism etched itself in creases around Bret’s eyes. “How long is a while? And what happened to it?”

      “I didn’t come straight here after leaving Winston Beach,” he said.

      “Where did you go?” Bret’s voice reflected uncertainty, as if he expected the ceiling to suddenly cave in on them. As if he’d experienced other symbolic ceilings caving in during his lifetime. “Pop?”

      “I was trying to turn that money into a whole lot more,” Clancy said. “I was hoping to give you that three grand with interest.”

      “Where did you go?” Bret asked again. This time the words seemed ground out of some dark place inside his memory.

      “I drove up to Mountain City, West Virginia, for a few days.”

      “Mountain City?” Bret closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Why did you go there?”

      Dorie leaned forward, trying to read both men’s faces. “I know exactly why he went there, Bret, and so do you.”

      Bret hammered his fist on the table. “Good grief, Pop. You lost that money gambling!”

      “I figured I could turn that fifteen grand into five times that much. I’ve always been lucky....”

      “You’ve never been lucky with dice!”

      “That’s not true. Why, lots of times I’ve...”

      “How much?” Bret asked. “How much have you got left?”

      Clancy turned his palms up on the table as if he somehow expected riches to fall into them. “I have...well, I had fifty-two bucks.”

      Dorie stood, marched around the table and loomed over him. But at only five feet three inches, her looming capabilities were limited. Still, she was gratified when he cringed.

      “Fifty-two dollars?” she said, pulling the bills he’d given her earlier from her pocket. “This fifty-two dollars? This is all that’s left of fifteen thousand?”

      He stared at the table. “’Fraid so. I had living expenses for that week, too. Hotels and meals...”

      Her entire body tensed before a trembling began in her legs and worked its way through her. She closed her eyes, fighting the desire to strike out physically at the man whose face swam before her, but what good would that do? She’d only end up in the same sort of place she’d visited two days ago when she met with her brother in a dank, gray-walled prison room.

      She pictured Jack’s face now and drew strength from the past. Since their father, a shiftless man with no ambition, had left them after Jack was born, Dorie had always been the rational child, the dependable one. Their mother stuck around until Dorie was legally an adult, and then she saw her chance and left. After that, Jack had counted on Dorie. And he needed her now more than ever.

      In the visitor’s room at the Broad Creek Correctional Facility, Jack had sat across from her, his hands folded, his gaze imploring her. “What do you mean he’s gone?” he’d asked when she’d given him the bad news about their funds being missing.

      “He just up and left after he signed the papers on the Crab Trap.”

      “But that’s your money. You