Ancient history

“What is his job anyway? Last I knew, it was something to do with insurance but it’s been at least 4 or 5 years since he mentioned it” you asked, digging through your memories for the last time John had actually been involved enough with the family to talk about himself.

“Yeah he’s still in the same business as far as I’m aware. He works with a car broker. Some insurance stuff. I asked him about helping with home insurance for this place but he said he couldn’t help” Izzy commented, starting to complain about some of the other times he had refused to help her out.

You continued to listen but your thoughts did turn towards some of the conversations you had heard when your father was last at home, like you had done yesterday when talking with Izzy previously. That fact that it had sprung to mind again made you think your brain was trying to make a connection that you hadn’t quite pieced together yet.

He had mentioned to Mom about selling the house once you and Sarah went to college and at first, you had just assumed he was trying to just move Mom into a smaller house so he could pocket the cash but with what Izzy had just said that might not be the case.

You had no concrete evidence yet but with him potentially being passed up for a promotion and having at least two families with 2 houses he needed to pay for, his financial situation couldn’t be looking good. You immediately thought the worst of him in that he might be cheating on Izzy more formally than just trying to pick up women at the bar and he was now onto his next victim but you stopped your thoughts to avoid giving yourself an even more biased opinion.

“Does he keep any important paperwork here in the house?” you asked Izzy, interrupting the conversation but wanting to find out more if you could.

“...He has an office upstairs when he works from home sometimes but I’ve never gone through his stuff before. Just general cleaning when I’ve been in there. Why?” Izzy replied, a curious look on her face as to why you would bring this up.

“I mentioned it yesterday but my father had said to Mom about selling the house and if he did have some issues getting that promotion like you said, I just thought maybe he’s having some money issues that he’s keeping a secret. I don’t want to scare you but if he is then I think it’s best if you learn about it so you can be prepared” you explained, seeing Izzy’s lips curl into a frown.

“Not to pile on but, he has gone out twice this weekend and yesterday we did see him drinking at a bar that had security outside. Might be that it was on the higher end for prices but we couldn’t go in to check” Grace added, not knowing you had been able to look at the place with your beholder effect.

You hadn’t focused on that at the time with your father harassing that girl but it did seem classier than you expected given that he was one of the people inside.

Izzy seemed to think on it for a moment before getting up out of her chair and gently picking up Jack.

“Let’s go take a look then” she said with a sigh, knowing she wasn’t likely to find anything good from this.

You got up first to follow her with Emma and Grace quickly getting up behind you, one by one, all of you heading up the stairs. You turned to see that Emma and Grace looked kind of happy to finally do some snooping and a part of you was getting caught up in their excitement as well, having to keep a straight face when you entered the room that Izzy had gone in.

“It kinda feels like I’m doing detective work” Izzy commented, a brief smile on her face which you returned before she got serious again.

The room was pretty barren even for an office, only having a desk, chair and a few sparsely filled bookshelves with odds and ends scattered on the shelves. You gave the shelves a quick glance but none of it looked useful in your opinion, your main focus being drawn towards the desk.

Izzy opened one of the desk drawers to see a pile of paperwork and decided it best to do this without holding Jack in one arm, briefly leaving the office to go put Jack in his crib and return shortly after.

You let Izzy go through the desk drawers where she scattered the documents that she could find out onto the desk where you could all take a look, more than you would have expected given how barren the room had been otherwise.

“Just to check, are you sure you are okay with us looking at these? Just in case there’s sensitive information.” Grace asked, holding back for a moment, while you and Emma hadn’t had that thought.

“Yeah it’s fine. Even I don’t know what’s in here so it might be a surprise even for me” Izzy replied, giving you all the go ahead to start looking.

You all crowded around and while some of the pages just looked to be general documents related to your father’s work, there were some that seemed to be more important. Izzy seemed to find one she was focusing on and Emma found another that looked to be a bank statement that she passed to you.

The dates on the document started from a couple of months ago and there was still a chunk of money in the account at that time but seeing that there were a lot more outgoings than there was money being put into the account, you could imagine the sum running out at a quick pace.

Among what appeared to be just a lot of card payments, there was something that appeared to be recurring on the first of the month with the same set amount but there wasn’t enough detail. You did snap a picture of the document before attempting to pass it to Izzy, hoping she would have a better understanding.

Izzy however just continued to look at the piece of paper she was holding and as you looked at her eyes, you could see her going back up to the top of the page to re-read whatever she had found.

“You okay?” you asked, bringing Emma’s and Grace’s attention back towards Izzy.

She looked over in your direction before looking back at the document. She didn’t seem to be torn on showing you what it said but she did look annoyed at what she had found.

“Is it something you wanna talk about or can we take a look?” you asked, still wanting to get her permission just in case.

You could tell that Izzy was looking for an opportunity to vent and she still handed over the paper, giving you the chance to see what she had found while Emma and Grace moved to look over your shoulders at it as well.

Author's note: I was hoping that I'd have more time on my hands around the Christmas period but things have been a bit busier than I expected this year. The last chapter of the year will be next Tuesday and then I'll be back on the 4th.

I'll end off my excuses and say that I appreciate all the support. I wouldn't have been able to make it as far as I have without you all :)