one arm. Moonlight illuminated her face, making her eyes look like silver stars, but a frown marred the smooth skin of her forehead. “What are you talking about?”
“You promise this stays between us?”
She pressed the flat of her palm to his chest, as though wanting to infuse him with her care. “Of course, Mack. You can trust me.”
“Melody didn’t go to Queensland because she got a job.” It hurt to even say that out loud, because he and his sister had been close growing up. Now they’d barely spoken in over two years. “She ran away.”
“What?” Zoey shook her head, blinking. “But that whole thing about her going to work at a resort in Noosa…”
“A made-up story.”
“But she posted a picture of herself there and…” Zoey’s shoulders slumped. “We spoke not long after she left. She told me how great it was.”
“She was probably trying to save face.” He ran his hand down her arm in a soothing manner. “I don’t think she wanted to deceive you, but you know what Melody is like. Making people think her life is perfect is what gets her into trouble.”
“What happened?”
“She decided to go into business with someone she met at a fashion show in Melbourne. They were going to produce surf-inspired clothing and sell it online, as well as trying to get it into stores along the coast. She was so excited that she skipped over doing her due diligence on her business partner.” He raked a hand through his hair, fury bubbling up inside him. “They needed money for the initial production run and the clothing manufacturer had a big minimum order for the unit pricing they needed. Otherwise the idea wouldn’t have been profitable. Mel asked for a loan from the bank, but they refused.”
“Oh no.” Zoey’s face crumbled as if she could tell exactly where the story was going.
“So, she asked Mum and Dad to help. As you know, they’re not the richest folks but they wanted to support her. They drew down a line of credit on the house.”
Zoey covered her face with her hands.
“Then Mel handed all that money over to her ‘business partner’ so they could ink the contract with the manufacturer. Only the woman stopped taking her calls and answering her emails. Mel went to the house where she supposedly lived and it was empty.”
“Shit.”
“It turned out everything about this woman was fake—her name, her address, her credentials. All of it.” Even now, he still couldn’t believe his sister had fallen for it. But Melody got swept up in the excitement of things, she always had. This time, unfortunately, it wasn’t only her bank account that bore the brunt of it—she’d ruined their parents, too. “The money was gone.”
“They never found the woman?”
“Police said they’d heard of similar things happening, but apparently she was a pro. There was no trail at all. They believed it wasn’t the first time she’d pulled this scam and that she’d likely left the country.”
“Poor Melody.” Zoey shook her head.
“Poor Melody?” Mack baulked. “Don’t you mean poor Mum and Dad? Their daughter bled them dry, almost ruined their retirement, and then they had to come to me to bail them out. Technically I now ‘own’ part of their house. What about them? Her naivety could have cost them everything.”
The air shifted in the room. What had been a warm, relaxed atmosphere a second ago was now charged with tension. “You’re seriously telling me you blame your sister for getting scammed?”
“Of course I do. Anybody with a modicum of sense in their head would have smelled this a mile off. All Melody had to do was look into her business partner. Heck, all she had to do was not hand the money over to a complete fucking stranger on a promise that wasn’t even in writing.”
“Come on, Mack. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
He should have known that Zoey would see his sister’s side of things more than his. She’d looked up to Melody, who was two years her senior, when they were younger, following her around like a colourful little duckling, hanging on to every word she said.
“You don’t need hindsight if you plan ahead,” he said. “Starting a business isn’t something to do on a whim, especially not when you’re dragging other people into it.”
Zoey’s mouth popped open. “Is this why you were so freaked out about me buying the food truck? Because you think I’m going to be like your sister? That I’m going to screw Gwen over?”
He didn’t say a