The Twenty Year Triangle

Chapter Twenty-Six

The mixture is finally ready to simmer, and I turn the heat down and put the lid on. I then turn to look at Oliver. He is dressed down today, well, sort of, in a pair of light tan Khaki pants and pair of brown dressy shoes. With it, he's wearing a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, showing off his tanned forearms.

I feel like a total scrub now in my oversized t-shirt with leggings. At least there aren't any holes or stains.

"Why are you here, anyway?" I ask curiously. "Is this about the debts?"

It's been five days since the meeting. Julian should have sold the car by now. I mean, it's a Benz; they go fast. But he's avoiding my texts asking about it.

"Sort of," Oliver says slowly. "I tried calling, but it went to voicemail. I need to talk to you about something, and it couldn't wait, so I came right over."

"What? Is it the car? Is he refusing to sell it?"

"No. Not the car. We're going to have to revisit what to do about the debts. We have a bigger problem now."

"What do you mean?"

"I had a bad feeling about Julian and his company, and I did some digging."

"You told him you wouldn't dig if he sold his car."

"I know I did, but when I get a feeling like that. I just can't shake it. I'm glad I did, though. I found something bad."

"How bad?" I feel a nervous knot starting to twist in my stomach. Something so bad he had to come to talk to me right that very moment. I'm worried.

"You understand what Julian does, right?"

"Yes, he sets up retirement funds for people with his company. They then invest it for them and make even more money from it. He goes everywhere doing presentations and stuff."

"I saw all the travel in the paperwork with his expense reports. I was curious about why he traveled that much."

"They work in different states, not just here," I explain. "Sometimes they have several presentations in a city or whatever."

"That's what I found unusual."

"Why?"

He pauses for a moment. "Normally, to sell retirement packages, they'd aim for big corporations and try to get them to sell it to their employees. There would be a lot of back and forth over the phone before they'd even meet, and maybe have a dinner if extra convincing is needed. From there, it's a meeting or two to finalize things. If this is what Julian was doing, he'd sell one CEO and sign up literally hundreds of people or more. That would make sense for Julian's commission checks. But that's not who he sells to."

"So, who does he sell to?"

"They travel around and find retirement homes where they set up dinner and presentation meetings at the center. They only pitch to older people."

"He never mentioned that." I say, a little surprised. I honestly never asked much about his work itself. He'd gossip about his fellow sales team, and of course, he'd brag about how he nailed the presentation but never got into the details of it all.

"Ninety percent of their clients are aged eighty and older."

"Really? And why is this a bad thing?"

"It raises a red flag when Julian was earning the commission checks he was. They don't make sense if he's presenting at retirement homes and only signing up a few here and there. Something felt really wrong about it. My grandma was nearly scammed out of everything by someone pretending they had her best interests in mind when they didn't. It's part of what prompted my mom and David to get her to a facility and move closer to her. Unfortunately, people always look to take advantage of vulnerable older adults."