Running the Risk by Lesley Choyce Page A

talk to Detective Solway, and I didn’t want to give my father or anyone a chance to talk me out of it. Once I made that first step into the police station, I knew my life might never be the same again.
    But it was a step I had to take.

Chapter Fifteen
    I knew that my father was looking at me and I tried to act natural. And then I realized something was different. My father was not dressed for work. No suit and no tie. I looked at the clock. It was 8:30.
    â€œAren’t you going to be late for work?” I asked.
    â€œI got fired,” he said.
    â€œWhat? Not again!”
    â€œFired. Done. Finished.” He tried to smile. “You could say I’m on vacation.”
    This didn’t make any sense. “There must have been some mistake, right?”
    â€œNo, I guess you wouldn’t call it a mistake. I wasn’t willing to go along with what my boss wanted. So they fired me.”
    â€œWhat did they want you to do?”
    â€œIt’s probably not a big deal. In fact, it’s probably done all the time. You know all those twenty-five-cent slot machines in the casino?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œYou can set the odds of winning on them. It’s supposedly regulated by the government, but everyone is pretty sloppy about it.”
    â€œBut you don’t work on the slot machines. You’re an accountant.”
    â€œRight. But somebody along the way reset the odds of winning on those machines. They did it months ago. And as a result, my company was making higher profits. Significantly higher profits. The odds of a customer winning went down. The odds of us making more money went up. I was just curious about why our revenues were so much higher on those machines.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd they told me to look the other way.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you?”
    â€œI’m not sure. I guess I didn’t think they’d fire me. I just thought I was doing my job by keeping them on track.”
    â€œBut they didn’t see it that way.”
    â€œI went out on a limb. I said we should come clean and admit the mistake, make an apology, pay a fine or whatever and move on.”
    â€œOnly it wasn’t a mistake,” I said.
    â€œRight.”
    â€œCan’t you fight this?” I asked.
    â€œI probably could but I’m not sure I will. I just know I did the right thing.”
    â€œBalls to the wall,” I said, not exactly sure why.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s what Hank used to say, remember?” I said.
    My father suddenly smiled. “Balls to the wall. I do remember that.”
    â€œSo this is your ultralight,” I said, wondering if he’d understand.
    He smiled again but said nothing.
    I looked down at the newspaper and took a deep breath.
    â€œDad, I guess I have to tell you something.”
    He saw the look on my face. “About the car?” he asked. “Don’t worry about that. I keep an eye on the odometer and noticed that it had a higher number on it than where I left it. Don’t know why I do that. I just have a kind of photographic thing about numbers. Guess that’s why I became an accountant. I was a little disappointed in you at first, but then I talked to your mother. She said she was surprised it took you this long, that it was quite a temptation.”
    â€œYou’re okay with that?” I asked.
    â€œNow I am. This weekend, let’s do it right. We’ll go out to the country and you can drive all you want.”
    â€œI don’t have a license. You know that.”
    â€œBalls to the wall,” he said. “Want some more toast?”
    â€œSure.”
    As I stared down at the newspaper again, I suddenly realized I didn’t know my father, not really. I’d always thought of him as the opposite of Hank, my grandfather. Now this.
    As he popped the bread into the toaster and poured himself another cup of coffee, I stared at the photo of the victim in the paper again,