Read Online Secret Santa by Cynthia Reese - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Cynthia Reese
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penalties. Lots of penalties. And anybody—say, like a wife —who signed a joint return... Well, it wouldn’t be pretty.”
“So what do I do?”
“You?” Floyd raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Why, Charli, you know you didn’t find any cash. Chuck didn’t have any.” This was delivered with pointed suggestion of the answer she should be giving if someone quizzed her on the subject. “I was his accountant. I should know. By the time he bailed your mama out of debt from all her shopping sprees, he’d just about got to the point where he was turning couch cushions over, looking for spare change. But hypothetically?” Again with the suggestive lift of his eyebrows. “If you ever did find some money, I’d leave it lay. Spend it in small amounts.”
Charli saw Neil turn and head back toward them. “But if you say he couldn’t have gotten it legally, what if I can’t bear to keep it?” She saw him fix her with one stern eye at her question. “Hypothetically, I mean.”
Floyd eyed her. “It can’t be much. So don’t screw up everybody’s life to make nice with the IRS.”
She swallowed. Neil was almost back within hearing distance. To cover up the conversation, she said, “I’m glad you’re being so safe with your chickens, Floyd. Be sure to tell Neil all about it so that people will understand the risk.”
Floyd had once again assumed that “aw shucks” air he’d had before he’d sent Neil to photograph the chickens. “You bet, Doc! Good to see you. Tell your mama I said hey.”
With a wave to Neil, who looked rather suspicious at her departure, she headed for the car and the patients waiting at her dad’s office—no, her office.
CHAPTER SIX
T HE DOOR TO HER father’s private office squeaked as it opened, giving Charli a moment’s notice to jam the pocket-size notebook into her pocket. Marvela’s head popped around the door.
“Hey, there you are! I know you’re dead on your feet,” Marvela began, then broke off. “You looking for something?”
“No, I...wanted to sit here. It’s like being with him,” Charli told her. It was true enough. After her last patient of the day, she’d come in here for that very reason. Then it had occurred to her to do some digging, to find out anything that could explain where all that money had come from. Her father had not been a rich man, wouldn’t have been even without her mother’s shopping compulsion.
Charli had found more than she’d bargained for. A stack of notebooks in her father’s bottom drawer.
They were journals of sorts—a combination of medical notes about patients and personal reflections. She’d pulled a notebook off the bottom of the stack, seeing a set of dates from the early 1980s in her father’s favored blue fountain pen ink.
Now, with Marvela’s eyes alight with curiosity on her, Charli toed her father’s drawer closed. “Did you need something?” Charli asked her office manager.
“Louredes Garcia over at the community clinic is on line one. In a jam. Your dad...he’d help them out sometimes.”
“Okay. Give me a minute.”
Marvela hesitated. “You okay? You look a little peaked.”
“Sure. Fine.” Charli flashed her a smile that she hoped would reassure her.
Marvela pulled the door closed. Charli knew she should pick up the phone, but she couldn’t resist the words she’d just read in the notebook.
Hernandez, Miguel: TB seems progressed, and patient’s lungs show textbook lesions. Not responding to antibiotics.
A few pages over, he’d noted in clinical, detached language that one Miguel Hernandez had died of complications from the TB, and that other family members showed similar symptoms.
No. What she was reading couldn’t be right. Her father hadn’t let a man die of TB. There hadn’t been a reported case of TB in Broad County in decades, much less a fatality—
Unless...maybe he hadn’t reported it. But why not? It was state law to report all cases of tuberculosis. Her father had
“So what do I do?”
“You?” Floyd raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Why, Charli, you know you didn’t find any cash. Chuck didn’t have any.” This was delivered with pointed suggestion of the answer she should be giving if someone quizzed her on the subject. “I was his accountant. I should know. By the time he bailed your mama out of debt from all her shopping sprees, he’d just about got to the point where he was turning couch cushions over, looking for spare change. But hypothetically?” Again with the suggestive lift of his eyebrows. “If you ever did find some money, I’d leave it lay. Spend it in small amounts.”
Charli saw Neil turn and head back toward them. “But if you say he couldn’t have gotten it legally, what if I can’t bear to keep it?” She saw him fix her with one stern eye at her question. “Hypothetically, I mean.”
Floyd eyed her. “It can’t be much. So don’t screw up everybody’s life to make nice with the IRS.”
She swallowed. Neil was almost back within hearing distance. To cover up the conversation, she said, “I’m glad you’re being so safe with your chickens, Floyd. Be sure to tell Neil all about it so that people will understand the risk.”
Floyd had once again assumed that “aw shucks” air he’d had before he’d sent Neil to photograph the chickens. “You bet, Doc! Good to see you. Tell your mama I said hey.”
With a wave to Neil, who looked rather suspicious at her departure, she headed for the car and the patients waiting at her dad’s office—no, her office.
CHAPTER SIX
T HE DOOR TO HER father’s private office squeaked as it opened, giving Charli a moment’s notice to jam the pocket-size notebook into her pocket. Marvela’s head popped around the door.
“Hey, there you are! I know you’re dead on your feet,” Marvela began, then broke off. “You looking for something?”
“No, I...wanted to sit here. It’s like being with him,” Charli told her. It was true enough. After her last patient of the day, she’d come in here for that very reason. Then it had occurred to her to do some digging, to find out anything that could explain where all that money had come from. Her father had not been a rich man, wouldn’t have been even without her mother’s shopping compulsion.
Charli had found more than she’d bargained for. A stack of notebooks in her father’s bottom drawer.
They were journals of sorts—a combination of medical notes about patients and personal reflections. She’d pulled a notebook off the bottom of the stack, seeing a set of dates from the early 1980s in her father’s favored blue fountain pen ink.
Now, with Marvela’s eyes alight with curiosity on her, Charli toed her father’s drawer closed. “Did you need something?” Charli asked her office manager.
“Louredes Garcia over at the community clinic is on line one. In a jam. Your dad...he’d help them out sometimes.”
“Okay. Give me a minute.”
Marvela hesitated. “You okay? You look a little peaked.”
“Sure. Fine.” Charli flashed her a smile that she hoped would reassure her.
Marvela pulled the door closed. Charli knew she should pick up the phone, but she couldn’t resist the words she’d just read in the notebook.
Hernandez, Miguel: TB seems progressed, and patient’s lungs show textbook lesions. Not responding to antibiotics.
A few pages over, he’d noted in clinical, detached language that one Miguel Hernandez had died of complications from the TB, and that other family members showed similar symptoms.
No. What she was reading couldn’t be right. Her father hadn’t let a man die of TB. There hadn’t been a reported case of TB in Broad County in decades, much less a fatality—
Unless...maybe he hadn’t reported it. But why not? It was state law to report all cases of tuberculosis. Her father had
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