Page 47 of Wayward

“Ms. Farley, there’s a lot of people on this account and many, many withdrawals.”

“Really?” She sounded neither bothered nor surprised. “Well, isn’t that extraordinary.”

“Would you like Mr. Gorev to now be the only one on the account besides you?”

“Yes. I think that would be prudent.”

“I’ll disable all other access immediately.”

“Excellent,” she agreed. “And if you would be so kind as to make sure that Maks has access to the safety-deposit box, that would be good as well.”

“Let me get him a signature card.”

She nodded, and I had to not only sign, but pick a pin so I could access the box. I then received my own key because Ada had no earthly idea where hers was, and all of us, including Misha, went back into the vault and then into a side room I was guessing most people weren’t invited into. I’d only ever seen gilded leather chairs in one of my father’s mistresses’ living rooms before, but the real surprise was the box that was brought in that was much bigger than my old one, and I’d kept binders and file folders in mine.

Inside there were more black-velvet boxes than I’d seen in my life. My mother’s jewelry boxes, kept safe in a vault in Germany that no one but me would ever know about, were no match for Ada’s horde. She had the bank manager, Mr. Raleigh, open a few for me, and there were diamond pendants and strings of pearls and sapphires and rubies… Honestly, it was like being in the gem room at the Field Museum in Chicago. There had to be millions of dollars of stones in that box. There was also a stack of bearer bonds, and when I glanced at Mr. Raleigh, his face said it all. She was trusting me, so he hoped I deserved it.

Once everything was back in its place, we returned to his desk, and he had my name added to all her accounts and gave me the access. When I logged in, Ada having taken Misha outside for a quick walk, I finally saw the bank account itself.

“Seriously?” I said, looking at the balance of twenty-seven million dollars.

He nodded. “Her family helped build the railroads, Mr. Gorev. That’s old, old money from steel and oil. The rest of the family has diversified now, and they’re worth billions. Ada was sent here, to Oregon, in the late seventies, from what I understand, pregnant with a child out of wedlock, the black sheep of the family, and she never left.”

He was a bad man, that was what Ada had said. Oscar had saved her from him. That was all I knew so far. “What happened to her child?”

Raleigh looked at me oddly. “You don’t know the story?”

“What story?”

“Well, you’re young and just newly moved to town, so that makes sense.”

“Please tell me,” I prodded him.

His sigh was deep, almost sad. “Ada’s daughter had ridden her bike into town and then didn’t come home. There was a huge search, all the agencies, plus local law enforcement, but no trace of the little girl, who was six at the time, was ever found.”

Not being a parent myself, I couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a child, but my mother had always said that she would need to go into the ground as well if she ever lost either me or Pasha.

“What year was that?”

“Nineteen eighty-four. Years later, I want to say ninety-six, the police got a report about a man lying in the middle of River Road, and when they went to check it out, they found Hugh Evans dead in the street.”

“Just a body on the road.”

Quick tip of his head.

“Was he hit by a car?”

“No. The official report in the local paper said he was beaten, then strangled.”

“Holy shit.”

“Indeed.”

“Okay, so who was this Hugh Evans?”

“Well, when they searched his house after his death, the remains of thirteen children were found in his basement.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry.”