Sunshower

Chapter 28: Truth Untold

***Three Days Earlier***

At 2 am Mr. Jeon sat in his office studying the receipt he found in the foyer closet. It was tucked into a coat Mrs. Jeon had been wearing the night before. He had gotten desperate in his search and started looking in oddball places no one in his position would think to look.

As he saw the heading on the receipt, it jogged his memory of a conversation they had long ago. Mrs. Jeon wanted to give to a charity called the Gift of Life. She suggested using his name to show his willingness for philanthropy, which would obviously look good to the CEO. He never really got involved in the donations though. His wife usually took care of that. However, something about this receipt bothered him. He didn't know if it was because the ticket was recent - within the last year, or if it was the large sum of money. It could have been the fact that it was left in Mrs. Jeon's coat pocket. Mrs. Jeon was not normally absentminded with paperwork such as that. She usually kept everything filed away neatly in the family safe.

Mr. Jeon took a deep breath. His hands shook visibly as he made his way to the safe. It sat in the corner of the room, hidden behind a large table, and a single white flower in a teal vase. He silently cursed himself as he entered the code into the safe. His wife was a very light sleeper and he knew the keypad sounds could wake her. When the safe clicked open he froze as he listened for any unusual sounds. letting out the breath he held, he continued. He looked for the donations file, where it always sat in certain order, but it was missing. "Of course it's missing," Mr. Jeon thought to himself. There was no way to know how long it had been missing since he normally just overlooked that file. He never had a reason to go through it, until now.

After replacing the table and turning the flower upright from where it fell, Mr. Jeon sighed with frustration. Just as he backed away from the table the door to his office slid open. His wife stood on the other side with a menacing look on her face. She smiled as she saw her husband, which made him relax a little.

"Not sleeping again?" she questioned him, her voice soft, almost caring.

"I'm just trying to work on some leftover paperwork from last week." She looked at him, disbelievingly, but her tone remained steady.

"Did you find whatever you were looking for?" she asked him. She walked closer to the couch that sat in the center of the room, looking toward the safe. He realized the  receipt was still on his desk. He stared at her, apprehension running  through him. He gave a fake yawn which expressed his tiredness. He turned to throw his pen to his desk and, as he walked up to Mrs. Jeon, he put his hand on the small of her back, leading her from the room.

"Now that you mention it, I am getting tired." He knew she was very suspicious of him. She was always suspicious.

As he followed Mrs. Jeon down the hall, he vowed silently to himself to see what he could find out about the donations his wife had made.

***Present Day***

Cassia sat in the center of the bed, trying not to scream. Her hand hurt where the shot glass cut her. The bandage Hobi had wrapped around it the night before already showed signs of blood seeping through. She also tried not to scream about the fact that she had gotten nowhere with her research. How could she ever convince Hobi, or find out the truth about her mom and her dad.

The phone rang, causing her to flinch.

"It's me. I think I found something." Mr. Jeon didn't greet her and Cassia stared at the phone a brief second before she acknowledged him.

"I'm on my way." Cassia jumped up and put on her shoes, not caring what she was wearing.

Cassia met Mr. Jeon in a cafe on the opposite side of the city from his office. They sat in a corner out of the way. Mr. Jeon looked at his daughter and slid a file across the table to her. He never lucked up finding the donations file. However, he did get a record for all of the past donations his wife had made to the Gift of Life charity, specifically. Cassia took it instantly and began to glance through it, looking for any clues. She found a multi-page document with financial  information on it.

"The other night, I found a receipt in my wife's jacket. It was to the Gift of Life. Normally I wouldn't really think anything about it, but this was a pretty good bit of money. Plus, normally receipts like this go straight into the safe."
She glanced up from the folder to look at him reassuringly. Cassia looked through everything for a few more minutes.

"What does any of this mean!?" Cassia heard herself ask.

"I called the Gift of Life Headquarters to request information. They provided me with this information of past donations.  That lists all donations that have been made in my name." Mr. Jeon fell silent.

Cassia sat the file on the table and pointed to some transactions that stood out to her.

"Look!" she said with a hopeful expression. "There are donations made at the same time to the same place in the United Kingdom." Cassia looked up at her dad, who still looked at his lap.

"I asked them the same thing. That caught my attention because of the frequency. The donations were made around the same time every year. And they were large amounts each time-"

"All the other entries are much smaller,"  Cassia cut across him.

"Would they tell you who it went to?" Cassia asked, knowing they couldn't give out that information.

"Since the donations were in my name I was able to access the account. They were sent to another charity in the United Kingdom. Specific instructions informed the latter charity to "give to someone in need." Mr. Jeon's voice cracked as he remembered what he found out; as remembered what he had to tell his daughter.

"They were going to your mom, Cass." Cassia's eyes grew with shock as she looked up at her dad. Cassia pulled on the sleeve of her sweatshirt anxiously.

**********

When Hoseok found Cassia that afternoon she was sitting on her couch, her purse still on her lap. She stared straight ahead with a cold, dead look in her eyes. Immediately alarmed, Hoseok hurried to sit next to Cassia, the usual smile vanished from his face.

Afraid to touch her, in case he scared her, he decided talking to her was probably the best bet.

"Cassia?" There was no answer.

"Cass?" He waved his hand in front of her face. Only then did she realize he was beside her. She looked at him with the same blank stare. Hoseok took the cue.

"Cass? What happened?" Cassia stared across the room at the wall again. The silence was deafening the longer she waited to answer. He placed his hand on hers, noticing the soiled bandage. Cassia finally spoke.

"My dad. He gave me this." Cassia lifted her hand to show Hoseok the folder, her eyes not averting from the wall. Hobi sifted through the folder. He had no idea what he was looking at and after a few moments of studying the paper he asked Cassia what it meant. She looked at him. He noticed how red her eyes were and how flushed her cheeks had become.

"Do you remember when we were searching through all those articles for Mrs. Jeon?" Hoseok nodded at her question.

"Do you remember how we found out about a charity she had donated to?" At the mention of this article, Hoseok seemed confused.

"You probably wouldn't," she said flatly. "It was nothing out of the ordinary by itself." She looked at the folder.".

"Those are from the charity that Mrs. Jeon donated to under my dad's name. This charity was called The Gift of Life, which supported abused and neglected children around South Korea. But-"

"Then what are these transfers to the UK?" Hoseok interrupted her. She seemed a little perturbed, but she knew he was not the problem. Cassia had started to come back to life. There was more of an awareness in her eyes as she looked at Hobi again. Strangely, she hadn't felt the urge to cry. What she felt was worse. She felt numb.

"Jungkook's mom sent money to my mom as an incentive to keep me from apart from my dad." Cassia's eyes met Hobi's as she finished her sentence. His jaw fell and he quickly pulled her into a protective embrace.