Read Online Mercy's Destiny: Montgomery's Vampires Trilogy (Book #3) (Montgomery's Vampires Series) by Sloan Archer - Free Book Online Page A

through to the woman. She didn’t seem to believe me, perhaps because of my disheveled form.
    “Would you please check for me?” I asked, thrusting my card over the counter. “I don’t know why my account is showing that amount. There has to be some mistake.”
    The teller took the card, though I could tell that she really didn’t want to. She clearly thought that I was a crackpot. “Okay, so you want me to check . . .” She eyed me over the top of the computer screen. “What specifically would you like to know?” she sighed as her fingers tap-danced over her keyboard.
    I fought hard to stay calm. “I’d like for you to check two things for me: when and how one million dollars got deposited into my checking account.”
    The teller’s fingers stopped moving and then her eyes widened. Guess she believed me now. “One second, please,” she said, getting up from her chair. “I’m going to check something with our manager.”
    A couple minutes later, a middle-aged man with a comb-over haircut and a pleasant smile came over and offered me his hand. He introduced himself with a name I forgot as soon as he said it and then invited me to join him over at his desk. He tossed an empty takeaway soda cup into the garbage can by his feet and asked me to repeat all my information again, so that he could bring it up on his computer. I did as he requested, and then waited for him to tell me that there’d been some epic error, that hackers had breached their system and deposited millions of dollars worth of fraudulent funds into dozens of accounts. That I was still broke as a joke.
    But he didn’t.
    He turned his screen around so I could see it. He tapped the area that showed my balance. “You can see here that the deposit was made earlier this morning. No mistake was made. The money is yours.”
    “Who put it in there?” As if I didn’t know.
    The manager shrugged apologetically. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”
    “Does the name not show?” I demanded.
    “Unfortunately, it doesn’t. This can sometimes happen if it’s a foreign deposit, or if the money was wired from an offshore account, or if it the deposit was made anonymously, which also might be the case.” He scratched his chin. “You don’t seem like you expected this money?”
    “I didn’t.” I sat back, dazed. “So . . .” I felt like I should have been asking all sorts of smart financial questions, but he’d pretty much answered them all in a couple short sentences. “So . . . So I guess I’m a millionaire?”
    He chuckled. “Looks that way.”
    “And if I spend this money . . . There’s no way that I’ll get into trouble? The bank isn’t going to come after me in a couple weeks after they’ve realized that they did make a mistake?”
    The manager said, “No mistake had been made, Ms. Montgomery. I can give you a printout of the information, if it will make you feel better.”
    I said that it would.
    Back at the car, I sat staring at the printout, feeling sick . . . and hurt . . . and angry. Only one individual I knew could have made a deposit that substantial: Robert.
    How cowardly could he get? What was that million dollars—guilt money? What was he trying to do, buy me off? Pay for me to move out of his house quietly—to go away forever?
    What did he take me for?
    Well, that pretty much gave me the answer I needed about our situation. A kidnapped man typically wouldn’t drive to a bank and make a million-dollar deposit into his ex’s account. Robert was with Serena because he wanted to be with her.
    I felt numb.
    Instinctively, I grabbed my cell and called Robert’s number. I was going to demand an explanation, and he was going to give it to me, damn it, whether or not he wanted to. After all that we’d been through—after all that I’d been through because of my association with him —I felt I deserved one.
    It rang once and then I realized my error. I could just picture the cell back at the house, buzzing away on the dining