“All right. I can’t afford this house. Not and do the repairs as well. What sort of deal will you make me if we work together on this?” She smiled. “That’s not as comforting as you might think, Demi. You look like a shark, if you want to know the truth.”
“Good. That’s what I go for when I’m in a meeting. But you will get the family discount. I will pay for the repairs and you can purchase the house. I will also make the deal on it for you. I think I can do a great deal better than the bank is asking right now.”
Josiah asked how much the bank wanted. “Just over four hundred thousand. But I can get them to come down. I promise you.”
“They would have to come down a great deal for me to be able to afford that. I mean, I have a good paying job now, but not that good. Not yet anyway.” Demi told him to let her handle this part for him. “All right. But the best price possible. Then how to I pay you back for the repairs and upgrades?”
“When you sell the house. Which I’m sure you won’t want to after you see it. But if you do, then I get half of the upgrade price back.” He asked what happened if he didn’t sell. “Then we both break even. I have a brother-in-law close, and you have a lovely home. One you might one day fill with children.”
“Yes, well, that day could be far, far away. All right. We’ll work on this after you talk to the bank.” She laughed, and Josiah realized that this had been a set up from the start, and it made him laugh as well. “You’ve talked to the bank already, haven’t you?”
“Yes. They were very cooperative after I helped them with the other bank manager.
And they said that they would do just about anything for me. When I pointed out that this house was clogging up their books, they were more than happy to let me take it off their hands.” Softly, Josiah asked her how much they’d been helpful to her. “I got it for a steal—for nothing. As I said, they were very happy with me, and since I was very willing to leave some of our money in the bank locally, they said that you can have it.
All you need to do, Josiah, is go to the bank when you can and sign the paperwork. As soon as you do, the house is yours. And construction on it will begin tomorrow morning.”
~*~
Lucian had never seen any of his brothers dance, much less a jig. And Josiah hugged them both several times before he sat down. He kept repeating over and over that he was a home owner. They were still laughing at him as they made their way out to the car. After Josiah pulled away, heading toward the bank, Demi turned to him.
“I’ve found my niece, the one that belonged to Astrid. So now both of them are in our care. And I found out how Astrid wasn’t able to murder her child. By the way, they’re both safe now, and we’ve set up a college fund for them both, as well as provided them with a check each month to help with expenses. Both sets of parents are strapped for money. Or they were.” He asked her how it had been possible with her sister. “She was in rehab. I was told that she’d hit a parked car and had been found guilty of drunk driving—again. When she showed up to court for her sentencing drunk, the judge ordered her to go in. She was pregnant when she arrived, and the staff had to work very hard in keeping Astrid and her daughter safe. Astrid tried several times to fall down stairs, and anything else she could to rid herself of the child. The father was located and has been with the child since. Money was tight, but he was afraid to ask for money from the system for fear that Astrid would try and take Ashley from him. That’s her name, Ashley Crosby. She just turned ten. Nathan’s little girl is Dana Morgan, and she’s six. What happened? I’m assuming that Nathan has died.”
“Yes. This morning. He was read the newspaper of the accounting of Astrid robbing the bank and how she was killed. The doctor told me that he’d taken it well at first, then he started screaming that you had tricked them. That you robbed them.” She nodded. “I never read the paper’s accounting, but is it that much different than what really happened?”
“Astrid went into the bank to try and take money out of my accounts. She didn’t know that you were on them as yet, but she wanted her share. I’m not even sure how she thought that trying to get money from them was going to work in her favor.”
Lucian watched Demi as she stared out the window toward the house. “She was demanding they call me and have me meet her there. I was called, but never made it there before she drew her gun and fired at the ceiling. The police were there as well, called by a very smart teller who was on break, and when she fired, they fired back. She was dead long before she hit the floor.”
“Do you feel like it was your fault?” She didn’t answer him. “Demi, you had nothing to do with either of their deaths. You know that, don’t you?”
“What I do know is that they would have taken and taken from us until we were broke. I know that they would never have stopped. There was always something else they needed, something more that they should have. In all the time that I lived at home, and even after I left, neither Nathan nor Astrid ever had a job. It was much easier for them to steal than it was for them to work for something.” He nodded, knowing people just like them. “Why did someone read the paper to him? To be cruel?”
“No. Apparently your brother couldn’t read well. They think, after the way he described it to the nurse, that he was dyslexic.” She said that she’d not known that. “No,
I didn’t think you did. But there is more; are you ready for it?”
“Yes. And no.” She looked at him. “When we’re able to settle things up, get our life on an even place, I’d like to go away with you. To see the world, one of our homes at a time.”
“Deal. Do you want me to give you the highlights, or all of the details I have?” He held her hands when she told him details, she was better with details. “After the article was read to him, he laid there for the longest time. The doctor had put someone on him to watch over him, but there was a COD in one of the nearby rooms. The nurse went there to assist. Nathan rolled himself out of the bed and onto the floor. There he used the blood from his wound to say that it was all your fault before he killed himself. He used the bed rail to break his own neck.”
Demi was quiet on the way home. Lucian wasn’t sure what to do now, or to say.
But when they got home, she turned to him before they were able to get out of the car.
After she kissed him lightly on the mouth, he asked her if she was all right.
“I will be. Now anyway. I’ve lost all my biological family in a matter of months, and
I’m not at all sure how I should feel about that, to be honest. But I do want something from you.” He told her anything. “I want us to tell our children every day that we love them. That we don’t spoil them with money even though we can. I don’t want them to grow up thinking that anything and everything is owed to them. They’ll work for what they want, and work harder for their grades. They’ll learn the family business too. Just as you’re doing now.”
“I like that idea. And we need to set up college funds for them too. Ones that will help them through college, but perhaps not pay for parties and shit.” She nodded.
“Also, while we’re on the subject, I’d like to go to college. I mean, I need to go to college to learn how to manage a business, so that I, too, have to earn my keep.”
“Excellent idea. I love it. And we should make it so that any of your family that wishes to go back, to— Why are you shaking your head no? Don’t you want them to go to college?” He nodded, but said they could earn their way, just as he did. “And just how did you earn your education?”
“I’m having a baby with you.” She smiled at him. “There’s my girl. How about we go in, take care of whatever has to be taken care of, and go up to bed. I don’t know about you, but this being rich shit is tiring.”
“Yes, I’m sure you just wore yourself out too. I guess you’re not in the mood for sex then?” He wiggled his brows at her. “I see. Well, if I have to suffer though it with you, then I will.”
They were both laughing when they entered the
house. Lucian surely did love this woman. And having a baby with her was just like having his cake and the icing too. Or something like that.
~*~
Doctor Walker watched the young woman. She’d been in his care for nearly six years now, and there had been no improvement at all in her state of mind. He had to either send her to a nursing home soon, or to a home that would keep her as unknown and as safe as he’d done. Judson was sure that someone somewhere would find her
here, and that just wouldn’t do—not in a constant catatonic state like she had been in.
The poor girl had suffered like no one else ever had.
He remembered the day that she’d been brought to his facility. It had been a cold day in December—the day after Christmas, as a matter of fact. Meadow had been in the hospital before coming here, her wounds too great to think that she was even going to live. But she had, defying all odds against her.
The police and everyone else that had had anything to do with her trial had said that she’d brutally murdered her entire family, the staff, as well as the family dog. But
Meadow had been found unfit to stand trial, her state of mind making it so that she couldn’t answer their questions or help figure out what exactly had happened that day, if she wasn’t the one that had killed them all.
According to teachers, as well as neighbors, Meadow had been a fun, loving sixteen-year-old. She’d just gotten her driver’s license the day before. She didn’t have anyone that disliked her, nor did she have any boyfriends. And certainly, no lovers.
The police had gone to the home of the Springs, a very prominent family in their hometown, to see where the father was. He’d been scheduled to chair a meeting, one that would start the process of next year’s holiday celebration. When they found the door open, it was called in as a simple breaking and entering. But it was worse. So much worse.
“Judson, it’s that newspaper man again. He is asking the delivery people if he can sneak in and get a picture of the young woman. I have had him run off several times, but he just won’t give up.” His nurse of nearly forty years, and his wife of just a little less—Margaret—looked in the direction that he’d been looking. “She’s such a delicate thing, isn’t she? I can’t imagine why anyone in the world would think that she had the ability to do such brutality to someone, especially her own family. Not like they said had happened.”
Not everyone knew the entire story. He did. He had been the doctor on call that day for the police. Acting coroner as well. Going into the house, knowing that it was going to be messy, he wasn’t prepared for what he’d seen. No one was, apparently, as there were several hardened police officers in the bushes losing their breakfast.
After telling his wife to run the newspaper man off then call the police, Judson headed to his office. There he reached into his lower drawer and pulled out the false bottom. Only his wife knew that it was there, the file that he’d put together just after
Meadow had come to his facility. Along with the pictures that he’d taken the day of the murders.
The butler had answered the door, from what they could tell. His body had been mutilated beyond knowing if he was male or female, except for the uniform that he wore. Blood was sprayed from the front door all the way up ten of the stairs in the house. After whoever had killed him with a single bullet to the heart, they had finished up by taking an axe to his face and chest. Then they moved through the house to the kitchen. The rest of the staff was there, as it was still early yet.
Both the upstairs maids, as well as the cook and gardener, had been murdered in the kitchen. Their bodies not as unrecognizable as the butler’s, but almost as bad. The
murderer had taken his time with the butler but seemed rushed with the other staff. The dog, a new puppy for Meadow’s brother, had been found with his neck broken, and his head had been split by tearing his mouth open until bones were shattered.
Flipping through the pictures of the man and his wife, he went to the ones of the children. Mostly he was focused on Meadow and her brother. She had tried to save the little boy. To him it was as obvious as the nose on his face.
They were found in his bed. The six-year-old had been murdered too, his small body not large enough for the damage that had been done to it. There was nothing left of his face, nothing of his chest. And in her effort to save him, Meadow had been cut badly, almost fatally.
Covered in her brother’s blood, the axe had nearly taken her hand off; her blood loss was what had nearly killed her. Her head had been cut like the others, but to this day, Judson believed that the murderer had been nearly caught. By someone coming to the door? The police, perhaps?
It would be unknown until Meadow was able to tell them. Nothing was final until she was able to point her finger at someone and say they had done this horrific crime.
For as long as he lived, Judson would never believe that a child like Meadow had been would ever have been able to do such a thing.
Right now, he had to work on getting Meadow to a facility to hide her away again.
With that idiot news reporter coming around now, he would eventually find a way in.
Or worse yet, take her out of here to question her himself. It had happened before.
When Meadow had been in the hospital, a person came in saying that he was her uncle—some distant one that only had just heard about the deaths. He hadn’t been there—Judson might have been a little more on his toes by asking for identification. But as it was, the man got all the way to the front of the hospital, with her unconscious, before someone thought that he might not have been who he said he was. They had transferred her to his facility almost a week later, when Meadow could be moved without causing any wounds to open again.
“Judson, come here please.” His wife’s voice sounded strained. He hurriedly put his things away and rushed to see what was happening. Margaret pointed in the direction of where Meadow was sitting. “See it?”
“No, I’m sorry love, I don’t—” Then it hit him. She was sitting there with her head tilted back, smiling. “She is enjoying the sunlight. Have you ever seen her do that before?”
“No. I stared at her just like you did and knew there was something different about her, but not what it was until I saw the smile. She’s smiling, Judson.”
For the last two years they’d been keeping her progress unknown to anyone but the two of them. They had nursing staff, of course. But since they owned several of this sort of home for people, they continued to rotate them in and out so that no one knew too much about any one patient. That was the way the people who had hired them liked it.
Privacy was a huge thing. But they had stopped giving information even to her attorney.
Margaret was the first person to have grown a dislike to the man. She called him oily. He hadn’t had any feelings for him one way or the other. But then once, when he’d come to see them about some other matter, he asked if they had any naked pictures of
Meadow.
“Why would we have those? She wears clothing while she’s here.” He asked if she took a shower or not. “Of course she does. We don’t allow our patients to be unclean.
What sort of question is that?”
“I just asked. You don’t have to get your binders in a knot. Christ.”
After that the attorney, Lee Shiloh, didn’t come by any more. The checks that they were getting came in the mail now. But he did want progress reports, every week. And they’d been saying the same thing all along—no change. And would continue to say that even after today.
“We’ll have to get her moved, and soon.” Margaret said that she agreed. “I’ll look around for an out of the way nursing home and arrange to have her sent there. The only person we have to contact is her doctor.”
Doctor of Behavioral Health Max Little had been by to see the young woman regularly. He also brought her a birthday card and gift each year, and made sure that she had chocolate, something they had discovered, soon after he started bringing the confection, th
at Meadow didn’t care for. Doctor Little had said to give it to the staff or other patients, as his wife was the one that had picked it out year after year. And even after Mrs. Little passed away, Doctor Little still brought the candy. It was habit now, he supposed.
Making a call to the doctor, he asked about the sunlight in her face. Then he questioned how she might make a trip so that no one knew it was her, or even noticed a person leaving the building. Judson told him about both the newspaper man and the attorney.
“I think she’d be all right with it. So long as she’s not tied down on a bed. That frightens her something terrible.” They both knew why. She’d been tied up when they’d brought her into the hospital, and she had only wanted her brother with her.
“Also, if you know of a nice place that she could go, that would be good too. My wife and I will certainly miss her, but I think that in light of recent events, we have to get her out of here.”
“Yes, I agree. And as a matter of fact, I do know of a place. It’s in Ohio where all this began, as you know. I just made a trip that way a couple of weeks ago for their grand reopening of their facility. Nice place, Judson. You might even travel with
Meadow so that you can have a look around. Take the missus and make a vacation of it for a few days. I’m sure that we can figure out a billing so that it’s all taken from the estate. Plus, she might need someone there that she knows. You never know about patients like Meadow, and what their reactions might be.”
“Yes, I remember when she was brought here. It was a mess until we found her little stuffed dog.” She had outgrown the dog now, but he’d kept it. If she remembered something, it might help her to have something of her brother’s. That’s who they
figured it belonged to. “I’ll start packing up her things now. If you could see if they have the room and if they can accommodate her things, that would be wonderful.”
Lucian: McCray Bruin Bear Shifter Romance Page 14