Discovery of the Moment Ch. 05

"Sixteen-thousand," I said confidently. I tossed it to her, which she caught easily, and then took off my jacket, which I slung over the back of the sofa. "And that's just the beginning, Kelly. Seriously. With as much crime as there is in this city, I could clean them all out in less than a month and we'd be swimming in millions in no time. A month later, a whole new set of criminals start bringing money in. It's an endless supply of cash, courtesy of the mindless sleeze-bags who have destroyed countless lives. Either they will learn from their losses and stop doing business in this city or they'll keep at it and I'll keep taking their money. No matter how it swings, they lose."

Kelly hefted the weight of the money roll and just marveled at it for several long seconds. Finally, though, she looked up at me with a look of concern. "But won't someone notice?" she asked. "I mean, won't someone like the Feds notice that we've got all this money but you've got no job? Won't they start, like, asking questions and stuff? I thought you wanted to AVOID attention."

I shook my head. "They can't notice what they can't see, Kelly. That's the beauty of cash. It offers anonymity and buying power. I'm not dumb enough to deposit this in the bank, so the Feds will never know about it unless they physically set eyes on it, which will never, EVER happen. And it's not like the criminals I'm taking this stuff from will file a report with the police, is it? 'Excuse me, officer, but I seem to have misplaced several thousand dollars that was earmarked for a rather large shipment of cocaine.' Never happen." I sat down on the sofa next to my daughter and explained my Plan. "I can use the insurance money to pay our normal bills. I'll just put it in a separate bank account and arrange to have payments like mortgage and utilities paid out of that account automatically. Five-hundred thousand dollars can be stretched a loooooong way, if you handle it correctly, honey. And the Feds won't bat an eye because it's all perfectly legal. Or I can just buy us some land out in the middle of nowhere, build us a small house and get off the grid entirely. We stay low-key out there for as long as we want, keep the cash I get doing this-" I pointed at the wad of money that was still in Kelly's hand- "in a safe and no one is the wiser." I sat back and spread my arms like I'd just brokered the deal of the century. "So... what do you think?"

Kelly glanced at the money roll, at me and then back at the money roll. "I think," she said, "I need to show you something." She handed the money roll to me and took several steps back so that she stood in front of the TV. I looked at her blankly, unsure of what she was going to do, and waited patiently. She closed her eyes and, next thing I knew, she was on the other side of the room. "It was only a few seconds, but it's a start," she said quietly.

My daughter had gone Between on her own.

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