THE TAINTED TRUST (Volume 2 of The King Trilogy)

CHAPTER 84

         Toronto.

Kerri stood in one of numerous long lines at Pearson International Airport, waiting to go through customs. Inching her way toward the Canadian Customs interrogation channels, she wondered what meeting her father would be like. She had rehearsed numerous ways of telling him who she was, but worried about how he would respond if she actually told him.

When she emerged into the reception area, she was approached by a man wearing a green sweater and beige trousers. She recognized her father immediately. Save and except for the slight graying of his hair, and the perceptible wrinkling under his eyes, he looked identical to the man in her treasured photograph. "Are you Kerri Pyper?" he asked, his face expressionless.

"Yes," Kerri replied, smiling and extending her hand to him, fighting an almost overwhelming urge to hug him. Her heart raced as he accepted her hand and shook it.

"Did you book a return flight?" he asked.

"No. I didn't know how long I'd be here."

"Did they feed you on the plane?"

"Peanuts."

"Then you're hungry?"

She nodded.

As Kerri sat facing her father in the Airport Hilton restaurant, she experienced every bit of the thrill and excitement she had so often imagined for the time when she would at last be with him. He was much better looking in person. She was unable to take her eyes from him and was hopelessly speechless.

"Now tell me what was important enough to bring you all the way to Toronto," Mike prodded, leaning forward, his expression exuding suspicion.

Without a word she reached into her briefcase and removed copies of all the financial reports she had made earlier in the day. "These," she said, placing them in front of him.

"What are they?"

"Copies of Louis Visconti's financial reports to you."

Mike glanced at the title sheets of several copies, then looked up, astounded. "Where the hell did you get these?"

"I borrowed them from Mara, Griesdorf and Visconti. Don't worry. No one knows I have them."

"But why do you..."

"I'll tell you how I got them, but first look at the reports for the last three years and tell me what you see. Pay particular attention to the bottom lines. Start with the eighty-seven report."

Mike thumbed through the pile, then removed the nineteen eighty-seven report. His face reddened and contorted in obvious anger when he saw the bottom line. He snapped his head upward and glared at Kerri. "There's no cash!" His expression turned quizzical. "How did you know?"

"Louis gave a copy of that report to my boss, Miles Dennis. That's when I..."

"Wait a minute. Why did he do that?"

"He took a large short position in crude oil with our company. You weren't aware of that?"

"I had no idea. How big was the position?"

"Thirty thousand contracts."

"That's an atrocity!" Mike declared, stunned and enraged by Kerri's revelation. He stared at the ceiling to contemplate the enormity of Visconti's transgression. "How long has he been fooling around with crude oil?" he asked, on the verge of exploding.