“About six hundred thousand dollars.”
My heart pounded.
“And you have more?”
Mary Lou nodded.
“Much more.”
“How much?”
She hesitated.
“Enough that if the wrong people discover where it is, we won’t survive.”
I stepped backward.
“What have you gotten yourself into?”
Mary Lou covered her face.
“I didn’t choose this.”
Kang Jun suddenly turned around.
“Neither did I.”
I looked at him.
“Then explain.”
He stared at me for several seconds.
Then he said:
“Your daughter didn’t marry me because she loved me.”
My daughter looked down.
“I married him because he was the only person who could get me out.”
“Out of what?”
Kang Jun answered.
“An organization that had already killed three people.”
PART 5 — TWELVE YEARS AGO
I couldn’t move.
Mary Lou sat at the dining table.
Kang Jun remained standing.
“What organization?”
He looked toward the locked front door.
“I can’t tell you the name.”
“Why?”
“Because knowing the name makes you a target.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You’re telling me I’ve been receiving eighty thousand dollars every year from a criminal organization?”
“No.”
Mary Lou shook her head.
“The money was mine.”
“How?”
She looked at me.
“Twelve years ago, before I left America, I discovered something.”
“What?”
“A financial fraud involving people who had connections to politicians, corporations and banks.”
I stared at her.
“And you reported it?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“They found out.”
Her voice became barely audible.
“They came after me.”
Kang Jun continued:
“I was working in financial security at the time. I helped her disappear.”
I looked at him.
“So the marriage…”
“Was protection,” he said.
Mary Lou nodded.
“We needed to make it look legitimate.”
I sat down.
All these years, I’d believed my daughter had abandoned me for a wealthy older man.
I’d believed she was living comfortably.
I’d believed she simply didn’t want to come home.
Instead, she’d been hiding.
And sending me money so I would never become curious enough to search for her.
PART 6 — THE PHOTO
Mary Lou went upstairs.
She returned carrying a small wooden box.
She placed it on the table.
“There’s something I need you to see.”
She opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Dozens of them.
Men entering buildings.
Cars.
Bank offices.
People meeting in parking garages.
Then she pulled out one photograph.
I stared at it.
It was a picture of a man I recognized.
My breath caught.
“That’s…”
“Yes.”
“That’s your father’s old business partner.”
Mary Lou nodded.
“He was involved.”
I stared at the photograph.
My late husband had always trusted that man.
He had attended our wedding.
He had visited our home.
He had even held Mary Lou as a baby.
“How?”
“He was one of the people moving the money.”
I looked at my daughter.
“How did you discover this?”
“I worked at the company.”
“You?”
She nodded.
“I was an accountant.”
I suddenly understood.
The money.
The secrecy.
The years away.
The constant transfers.
Everything.
But one question remained.
“Why did you send exactly eighty thousand dollars every year?”
Mary Lou looked at Kang Jun.
He answered.
“Because eighty thousand dollars was the amount we could move without immediately triggering additional scrutiny.”
I stared at him.
“So you were laundering money through me?”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“The money sent to you was clean.”
“Then whose money was it?”
Mary Lou whispered:
“Mine.”
PART 7 — THE ACCOUNT
She opened another file.
Inside were bank statements.
My name appeared repeatedly.
I looked at her in confusion.
“Why is my name on these?”
“Because I needed somewhere safe to put the money.”
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