by Terri Reid
Chapter Thirty-six
“Do you think we have to worry about Daphne?” Dave asked as he looked at the group sitting around the dining room table in Mary and Bradley’s home. Rosie and Stanley were at one end of the table, and Mary and Bradley were at the other end. Dave sat on one side with an empty chair across from him.
Mary leaned over and picked up a cookie from a plate in the middle of the table and waved it as she spoke. “Gilbert said that her grandparents were going to keep an eye on her,” Mary said. “And they would let us know if she seemed troubled.”
There was a sharp knock on the door, and Bradley got up from his chair to let Alex into the house.
“What’s this about an emergency meeting?” Alex asked Bradley as they walked back to the dining room. “What’s going on?”
“We found a connection between the men on the list,” Bradley said. “They were all part of the Investor’s Group.”
“And they all had new life insurance policies courtesy of the same group,” Dave added.
“Life insurance policies?” Alex repeated, his eyebrows shooting up. “And who the hell is the beneficiary of the policy?”
“That’s a good question,” Dave said. “The Investor’s Group kept the policies, so we don’t know. Yet.”
Alex sat in the seat across from Dave and nodded. “I like yet,” he said. “What’s next on the agenda?”
Mary turned to Alex and smiled. “So, Alex, how was your day?” she asked.
“What do you want?” he replied quickly.
She grinned. “See, I love it when you catch on right away.”
“I’m amazed,” Dave laughed. “He never caught on that quickly when we were growing up.”
“Dave,” Alex said.
“Yeah, what?” Dave chuckled.
“Shut up,” Alex replied, then he turned to Mary. “So, what do you want?”
“I want to make a deal with you about a witness,” she replied. “A witness who worked at a bank and divulged confidential information about blind trusts to one of the members of the Investor’s Group.”
“Why did the witness divulge the information?” Alex asked.
Mary sighed. “She is young and thought she was in love,” she admitted. “And the creep used her.”
“So, there was no financial gain on her part?” he asked.
Mary shook her head. “No, she just gave him contact information about people who had large trusts,” she said.
“Yeah, okay, I can see my way on dropping the charges,” he said. “But the bank isn’t going to be too crazy about keeping her as an employee.”
Mary nodded. “She’s going to be one of the recipients of Maybelle money, so I think she’ll be fine,” she explained. “And, in the meantime, she’s agreed to wear a wire for us.”
“Great,” he said. “What’s the plan.”
“And that’s step two,” Dave said. “We haven’t decided on the plan.”
“There’s only one option and one plan,” Stanley inserted. “I go in undercover.”
“No,” Mary said immediately. “You just got out of the hospital; we aren’t risking you.”
Stanley shook his head and frowned at her. “You listen here, missy,” he replied. “Just ‘cause I’m getting up there in years, don’t mean I ain’t got some fire left in this here gut. I ain’t letting you wrap me up in cotton padding and store me away. I’m the only logical solution.”
“He’s got a point,” Dave remarked.
“What?” Mary, Alex, and Bradley all exclaimed.
Dave shrugged. “He’s got a point,” he said. “He’s got a great backstory – some kind of settlement from the fire. He’s the right age. And, he knows what he’s walking into. Stanley’s a shrewd guy; he can handle it.”
Alex sat back in his chair and shook his head. “What the hell did I just hear?” he asked.
“You heard the truth,” Stanley replied with a firm nod. “You heard the way it is. I’m the only one suited for this here operation. T’aint nothing else no one can say.”
Mary stood up and looked across the table at Stanley. “I don’t care how logical it sounds,” she said. “I still say no.”
Stanley slowly stood up too and placed his hands on the table in front of him. “I don’t care what you say, girlie. I’m still doing it.”
Mary slipped around her chair, walked into the kitchen and out the back door.
Bradley started to stand when Dave placed his hand on Bradley’s arm and asked. “Can I talk to her?”
Bradley hesitated and then nodded. “Sure, you can have round one.”
Dave smiled and nodded. “Thank you.”
He found Mary leaning against the railing and looking out into the backyard. She glanced in his direction, blotted her wet eyes with a tissue, and turned back to look at the yard.
“You’re not going to convince me,” she said.
He walked over and leaned on the railing next to her, staring in the same direction she was looking. “I’m not going to try,” he said easily.
She snuck a look at him, then turned back. “Then why did you come out here?”
“So, no one else would,” he said. “I figured you just needed some time alone.”
She glanced at him again. “I’m not alone if you’re here,” she said.
He chuckled and nodded. “You’d be less alone if Bradley were out here,” he said.
She sighed and nodded. “I can’t let Stanley do it,” she said softly.
“So, do you want to fill me in?” Dave asked.
Still looking forward, she nodded. “A couple of months ago, in the fall,” she explained, “we ended up investigating an abandoned asylum in Wisconsin, and something followed me home. Something very disturbed and quite powerful.”
“That sounds terrifying,” Dave replied.
“He was,” she admitted. “He liked to start fires. When he was a child, he set fire to the Christmas Tree and then snuck out of the house to watch his family burn to death because he thought they hadn’t bought him the bike he wanted.”
“Wow,” Dave said softly. “Very disturbed.”
“We were able to protect our home, but we didn’t think he would attack Stanley and Rosie,” she said, her voice thick with regret. “We got a frantic call from Rosie that Stanley was locked inside the burning inferno of their house. Ian and Bradley were able to knock down the door and rescue him, but he was so badly burned. He nearly didn’t make it.”
Her voice broke, and she took a deep breath. “He nearly died because of me,” she whispered.
Dave waited for several moments before he replied. “He nearly died because of the pyromaniac,” he said. “You didn’t start the fire.”
“But I led him here,” she argued.
“No, he followed you here,” he stated.
She turned to him, her eyes blazing. “You didn’t see him,” she snapped. “You didn’t see Stanley lying in the hospital, covered in bandages, hooked up to life support. You didn’t see him, I did.”
Dave nodded slowly. “And that’s how you still see him, Mary,” he said. “And that’s the problem. Because do you want to know how Stanley sees himself?”
She hesitated, confused by his question. “How?”
“He sees himself as a young man, a strong young man, able to fight for his country, his family and all the people he loves,” he said softly. “He sees himself as a warrior; strong, brave and true. He sees himself as a hero, saving the day. He sees himself as a man, not an old man, not an invalid, but as a man whose job it is to help the people around him.”
She took a deep shuddering breath and nodded. “Yes, he does,” she agreed quietly.
“So, do you want to hold up your mirror and show him who you think he is?” Dave asked. “Or do you want to allow him to continue to be who he wants to be?”
“But…” she began.
“We will protect him,” Dave assured her. “We won’t put him at risk.”
“But he will be at risk,” she repl
ied.
Dave nodded. “As a former soldier, I’ve got to say, given the choice I’d rather go out fighting than babied.”
“Dammit,” she sighed. “Why can’t men just be sensible?”
Dave grinned. “Because then we would be women.”
She chuckled and nodded. “Okay, let’s go tell Stanley he can do it,” she said. “If Rosie lets him.”
“Oh, she will,” Dave said.
“Okay, how do you know that?” Mary asked.
“Because she sees him as a hero too.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Mary followed Dave back into the house and met Stanley’s eyes as she walked toward the dining room table. She could see the hurt in them, and she realized Dave was right, he didn’t want her protection, he wanted her confidence in him.
Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the table, keeping her eyes on Stanley. “I need to apologize,” she said earnestly. “I have to admit that I’ve been carrying a lot of guilt for what happened to you in December.”
“What darn-fool thing are you talking about?” Stanley grumbled.
“That spirit followed me,” she replied. “He was after me, not you. But he decided the only way he could get to me was through you.”
“T’weren’t your fault,” Stanley said. “Never thought it was your fault.”
“But I did,” Mary responded quickly. “When I saw you in the hospital… When we didn’t know if you would make it…”
Stanley shook his head. “When you prayed for me on Christmas Eve,” he interrupted.
Her eyes widened. “You knew?” she asked.
“I might have been in a coma,” he said softly, his eyes glistening with tears, “but I wasn’t dead. Course I knew.”
She inhaled deeply and nodded, ignoring the tears in her own eyes. “I have confidence in you, Stanley,” she said. “I know you can go undercover, and you can help with this operation. I know you have the skill, the intelligence, and the street-smarts to get it done. It wasn’t a lack of trust; it was an overabundance of fear.”
He smiled at her. “Well, that’s a whole different matter,” he replied. “And I understand.”
She saw the hurt replaced by love and understanding in his eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and then she sat back down in her chair.
Bradley leaned over to Dave, who’d already sat back down. “Thanks,” he whispered.
Dave shrugged. “No problem,” he whispered back. “She just needed to be reminded that she isn’t responsible for the world.”
Bradley nodded. “Don’t we all.”
Rosie cleared her throat loudly and looked around the table when they all turned in her direction. “I have something to say,” she said firmly.
“Of course,” Alex replied. “Please, go ahead.”
“I’m going to have to die,” she said.
“What?!?” Stanley exclaimed. “What the heck are you talking about?”
She turned to him and shrugged. “Well, all of these men were widowers,” she said. “Remember, we talked about that. If you’re going to go undercover, you can’t have a wife.”
Stanley looked from Rosie to Alex, who just nodded. “She’s right,” Alex agreed. “All of the men were single.”
“Well, I ain’t killing my Rosie off,” Stanley said. “Even it is just pretending. That’s not going to work.”
“You could always leave him,” Dave suggested, and then added when everyone turned to him with shocked faces. “Just temporarily, of course.”
“Why would I leave him?” Rosie asked.
Dave shrugged. “Well, a lot of men go a little crazy when they inherit a bunch of money,” he replied.
“They get too big fer their britches,” Stanley added.
“Exactly,” Dave said. “People start paying attention to them, and they let it go to their heads and forget about the people who have supported them all along.”
“That could work,” Rosie said.
“Excuse me?” Stanley asked, slightly offended.
She turned to him and placed her hand over his. “Not that you would ever do that in real life,” she assured him. “But it’s a believable circumstance. You’ve got this big settlement, and you start acting like, pardon my French, a jackass.”
Stanley chuckled softly and squeezed Rosie’s hand. “Okay, as long as I don’t start acting like one in real life.”
She smiled and shook her head. “If you ever started doing that, I wouldn’t let you get away with it for very long,” she assured him.
“So, it’s agreed?” Alex asked. “Stanley is our guy, and Rosie is playing along with it?”
Mary nodded. “Rosie, do you want to stay with us while you’re, um, separated from Stanley?”
“Wait?” Stanley interrupted. “She’s not really going to leave me, is she?”
Bradley nodded. “Yes,” he said. “If we want to make this believable, she has to move out. We don’t know who they have working for them, and Freeport’s a small town.”
“Well, darn it,” Stanley muttered. “I’m going to have to go back to my own cooking.”
Rosie smiled at him and patted his hand. “But just think about how much more you’re going to appreciate me when I get back home.”
“I can handle putting together the trust account with Daphne,” Dave said. “I can just transfer some of my funds over to start things.”
“We could also use some of Maybelle’s money,” Mary suggested. “I’m sure she wants to get to the bottom of this as much as the rest of us.”
Alex shook his head. “Let’s have Dave do it,” he said. “Then we aren’t co-mingling funds. And, don’t worry.” He smiled at his friend. “Dave can afford it.”
“So, what do I do next?” Stanley asked.
“Go to the store, get yourself a bunch of TV dinners and start living the good life,” Dave teased.
Stanley shook his head. “I guess I really wasn’t thinking straight when I raised my hand for this one,” he said, and then he turned to Dave. “See, that’s what you get for volunteering.”
Dave laughed. “You forgot the number one rule in the military.”
“What’s that?” Mary asked.
“Never volunteer,” Dave and Stanley said together.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chuck Lynch let himself into Daphne Rudd’s office without knocking, smiling knowingly at her as he sat down in the leather chair in front of her desk. It was nearly closing time at the bank, and he had wanted to meet with her when no one else was around.
“It was good to get your text,” he said with a grin that made her grit her teeth. “I see you saw it my way.”
“Your way?” she asked, moving her hand to her lap and crossing her fingers that he would walk right into their trap. “I don’t understand.”
He leaned forward against the desk and his smile widened. “You understood that if you don’t continue to give me the names of the men who open blind trusts,” he said slowly as if she were dense. “That I would tell your superiors about the ones that you have already given me.”
“Oh, so you are going to tell them that you blackmailed me and coerced me?” she asked.
He laughed softly and leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. “No, sweetheart, I’m not the stupid one here,” he said. “I will just let them know that I discovered your perfidy by accident and felt that it was my duty to let them know. For the good of the bank.”
“And will you tell them that you told me you loved me?” she asked.
He chuckled again. “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t want you to look like more a fool than you already do,” he replied. “I mean, what kind of man would be interested in a woman like you?”
A book fell off a shelf and skimmed past Chuck’s head. He ducked quickly and then stared at the spot. “What the hell…”
Daphne looked startled too.
“Gilbert,” Maybelle whispered, holding back her laughter. “We were supposed to be quiet.”
“I
didn’t say anything,” Gilbert whispered back. “But I couldn’t just stand here while he demeaned that poor girl.”
“We were also supposed to be subtle,” Maybelle said softly, secretly thrilled at his daring response.
Gilbert met her eyes and nodded. “Well, I didn’t push the bookcase over on him, did I?”
Maybelle clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back her laughter.
“What was that?” Chuck asked, looking around the office.
“What?” Daphne asked, shrugging carelessly. She heard it too, but this was an old building, and she often heard little noises in her office. At first, it had frightened her, but she eventually got used to it. “It’s just the building settling, it happens all the time.”
He looked around at the bookcase once more, then turned to her. “Okay, I don’t have all day,” he said. “Who do you have for me?”
“Stanley Wagner,” she replied.
“Wagner?” he asked. “Of the office supply store. He doesn’t have any money.”
“Well, he didn’t,” she said. “Until the settlement came in.”
“What settlement?” he asked.
“The fire in his house was caused by a faulty appliance,” she said. “He sued the company, and they settled for quite a hefty sum.” She rotated her computer screen so that he could see the contents of Stanley’s account.
Chuck whistled softly. “Wow, it pays to be in the right place at the right time,” he said, then he looked up at her. “Wait. He’s married. I told you I only wanted single men.”
“He and his wife are separated,” she said. “He told me all about it when he set up the account. She couldn’t handle his new wealth. More like, she couldn’t handle his new attitude.”
“So, he’s on his own with an account filled with lots of money, just waiting to be invested,” he said, then he smiled at her. “You did good, Daphne. Your job is safe for a little while.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
He stared at her for a long moment. “You never asked me that before,” he said. “Why do you care now?”
She leaned forward and met his eyes. “Now that I know the kind of person you really are,” she said. “I’m less assured that you mean no harm to these men.”