Chapter 32 - Uncle Dean II

Chapter 32: Chapter 32 - Uncle Dean II

For a few seconds, it was like he hadn’t heard. His face stayed perfectly still. His hands stayed folded on the desk.

Then something seemed to collapse inside him.

His shoulders sank. His hands came apart and pressed hard against the walnut, flat and trembling. His breathing changed. It went short and shallow. He looked down at the desk, then at the bookshelf, then at the wall, then back at the desk, like he was searching the room for something that would make the information make sense.

"So," he whispered. "The cancer took her."

Jesse nodded.

He’d always known his mother kept in touch with Dean, on and off, over the years. A phone call here and there. A birthday card. But she’d always kept him at arm’s length.

Jesse knew why. Everybody had known why, even back then. Dean Monroe had been in love with Emma Byrne for as long as anyone could remember. He’d never said a word about it. He’d never had to. It was in the way he went quiet when she walked into a room. The way he always remembered how she took her coffee. The way he looked at her, the same way he was looking at Jesse now, like she was a puzzle he’d give anything to solve.

His mother had been kind about it. But she’d been married, and then she’d been heartbroken, and then she’d been sick. She’d never let Dean get too close.

She must have told him about the diagnosis. She just hadn’t told him how bad it got at the end.

"Yes," Jesse said. His voice cracked, and he hated it. "That son of a bitch got her."

Dean took off his glasses with shaking fingers and set them down on the desk, perfectly centered.

"I tried to help her," he said quietly. "Last year. I found a clinic in Switzerland. A trial program. Very promising results. I offered to pay for everything. The flights. The treatment. A nurse. Everything." He pressed his fingertips to his eyes. "She said no. She said she couldn’t take my money. She said it wouldn’t be right."

Jesse felt a tear slip down his cheek. He wiped it away quickly with the back of his hand.

That was his mother. Too proud to the very end. Too stubborn to let anyone carry her, even when she couldn’t walk anymore.

Dean put his glasses back on and looked up. His eyes were wet. He blinked several times and fixed his gaze on Jesse’s face again, sharp and searching.

"Your face is different," he said bluntly.

Jesse let out a startled laugh. Dean had never been one for subtlety.

"Your nose is wonky. It’s not straight. It was straight before." Dean tilted his head. "And your eyes don’t align. They used to align. The left one deviates approximately eleven degrees inward."

"Yeah." Jesse sniffed and shook his head. "I’ve been through hell these last thirteen years, Uncle Dean. It’s a long story. But that’s not why I’m here."

Dean folded his hands again. His expression shifted back to that intense, focused calm.

"Then why are you here?"

Jesse took a breath.

"I want access to my mother’s Cayman Islands account."

Dean blinked.

"The account at Caribbean Sovereign Trust? In Emma’s name?" He frowned slightly. "That account has been empty for thirteen years. Zero balance. Why would you want access to an empty account?"

Jesse hesitated.

"I want to use it for something," he said. "Something that isn’t entirely above board."

Dean’s pale eyes narrowed with interest.

"Explain."

Jesse opened his mouth to give a vague answer, some half-truth that wouldn’t give too much away.

Then he looked at Dean’s face and closed it again.

There was no point. Dean had spent fifteen years untangling the most complicated financial lies in New York. He’d see straight through anything Jesse tried to dress up. Jesse had never once in his childhood been able to lie to this man about anything, from broken vases to missing homework.

So he told him the truth. Or as much of it as he could.

"I came into some money," Jesse said. "By chance. A lot of money, very fast. It’s legitimate. But I can’t exactly explain where it came from. Not in a way anybody would believe." He leaned forward. "And with my last name, it’s only a matter of time before someone starts asking. I need it to look justifiable. Legal. Traceable to somewhere clean, in case there’s ever an investigation."

Dean listened in complete silence. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t move. His eyes stayed locked on Jesse’s face the entire time.

When Jesse finished, Dean was quiet for a long moment.

"It’s not a foolproof idea," he said finally.

"Why not?"

"Because the account holder is deceased." Dean said it plainly, without softening it. "Any activity on a dead woman’s offshore account will be flagged automatically. Any deposit. Any withdrawal. Any change in account access. Especially an account that belonged to the wife of Jamie Byrne." He shook his head. "It would trigger an alert at the bank within hours. The bank would report it to federal regulators within days. And then the FBI would be involved."

He paused.

"Especially that bastard Percy Bonham."

Jesse’s eyebrows shot up. He’d never heard Dean curse before. Not once.

"You know Percy?"

"Everyone who was connected to your father knows Percy Bonham." Dean’s mouth tightened. "He interviewed me forty-seven times."

Jesse sat back in the chair and let out a long breath.

So much for that.

He’d been counting on the Cayman account. It was the cleanest cover story he had. Without it, he had a Porsche, a million dollars, a VP office, a federal agent living three blocks from his house and absolutely no way to explain any of it.

He rubbed his forehead.

"Then I’m out of ideas," he admitted.

Dean looked at him for a long time.

Something changed in his face. It was a slight narrowing of the eyes, a faint tilt of the head, the look of a man who’d just spotted the one clean path through a maze everyone else thought was a dead end.

"I have a better idea," Dean said.

Jesse looked up.

"A foolproof one."

Jesse leaned forward in his chair.

"What is it?"