Samson

by Barton, Kathi S

  ~~~

  Allie felt empowered. For the first time since she’d been called here, she had her big girl panties on and was feeling like she could do this. Of course, she was afraid of what he might say to her. Whatever it was, it was going to tear into her heart like it had finding out that he’d been the one to kill their parents.

  Sitting in the back of the courtroom, Allie looked around. Things were very lovely in this old building. Pictures of former judges from back in the early eighteen hundreds hung on the walls. Also, she noticed that while the place had been upgraded with things like the Internet and the like, it had such old world charm that she found herself relaxing a bit. Right up until her brother was brought from the side door and sat down.

  He looked like he was losing weight. She’d heard from one of the police that worked in the jail system that he was refusing to eat the slop, as he called it. Howie wanted something special brought in for him because he was used to eating much better.

  “I have to tell you, Ms. Prince, he shows all that are right next to him what a wounded boy he is. That he was misled by his family, the other ones. But as soon as the cameras, so to speak, are turned away, he’s a monster. I’m sorry to tell you that, but it’s the truth. Don’t let him pull you in.” Allie had promised that she’d not let him. “He’ll work you to death. Might even blame you for him being like he is. You just be careful and have one of the Prince men by your side. Sampson is a good man; he’ll take good care of you.”

  So now here she sat, with Sampson on one side of her and Harley on the other. Allie thought that she was about as prepared as a person could get without being totally clueless. The faeries and Aurora had made sure she knew what he’d been thinking about, too, which made her ill at times.

  When the judge came into the room, everyone stood. She wasn’t sure that her brother could see her, not with the men blocking her from him. It looked to her like Howie was really looking for her too. As soon as everyone sat down, the judge asked if she’d come to the front to speak to her brother.

  Moving by Harley, she held tightly onto her notes that the attorney she’d spoken to had told her to say. He also told her to be as far from where Howie was sitting as she could be. It seemed that no one trusted Howie anymore. A small bubble of laughter spilled from her mouth as she stood there.

  “Mrs. Prince. It’s been thought by Mr. Sheppard here that you’re getting him an attorney. Would you please, for the courts, tell us what your plan is to help your brother out?” He winked at her. “You go on ahead, ma’am. You have plenty to say, I’m betting.”

  “I will not be working with the defendant at all. I’m going to be working for the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Able Conrad, on the conviction of one Howard Patrick Sheppard.” Howie asked what that meant. Allie continued rather than tell him that she hoped he was convicted on all crimes. “I have already turned over all notes, videos, as well as text messages from Howard Sheppard. I will also be testifying as to what was said to me when I spoke to or had any conversation with him.”

  “What does that mean, Allie? You have to tell me what you’re talking about, please?” The puppy dog eyes didn’t even phase her. Harley stood up and explained to Howie that it meant she wasn’t going to be helping him. “You’re not going to help your own brother? What sort of—Allie, they’re going to try me as an adult. What do you think is going to happen to me if they find me guilty? I’ll be put in a prison with grown men. I’m just a kid.”

  She looked at her notes again, planning to tell him again what she was doing. He screamed at her to tell him what she was going to do if he ended up in prison. This question she could answer, and took a lot of pride in herself to be able to tell him just what she was going to do.

  “Rest easier than I have at any time in my life when you were out there with Serenity and Heath.” She could hear him screaming at her to tell him what she was doing as she made her way back to her seat. When she sat down, she took Sampson’s hand into her own and held onto him tightly.

  Leaving would show that she was weak. Allie did the only thing she could think of to make sure that he knew that she was true to her word to him. Also that he didn’t frighten her one bit. Lifting her chin, Allie stared right at Howie while he spewed obscenities at her. He was ordered by the judge to sit down and shut up, or he was going back to jail.

  When he calmed down enough to sit there, Howie kept looking back at her and glaring. She reached to Sampson and asked if he was reading his mind. When he squeezed her hand a little tighter, she took that to mean that Howie wasn’t thinking good things.

  I want you to know that you’re going to forever be safe with us. She said she knew that. Good. And he’ll never get to do one thing that he has in his head. Trust me on that.

  Do I want to know? Sampson just looked at her and winked. I’ll take that as a decisive no. It’s all right. Even if he thinks he’s going to get out, I have enough things on him that I think I can almost guarantee him staying away for the rest of his life.

  Good.

  The rest of the trial was about what sort of evidence they had on Howie. Nothing like the bombshell she had, but that would be heard at the trial. Allie was going to hand over copies of everything she had to Mr. Conrad as soon as this part of the trial was over.

  What she worried about most was that the actual trial was going to be a long time away, and she’d be a nervous wreck by then. When recess was called, she and the other two left the courtroom in favor of going home. She’d said her piece, and was ready to get on with the meeting with Conrad.

  It was going to be three hours before he showed up at their home. Sampson had already told her that the trial was going forward and that the date for it was in a week. She asked him how come it was happening so quickly.

  “Small town. Not too many murders around here, I guess. When I heard from the judge a little while ago, he said that the little shit had tried to have it put off for a bit longer. I have a feeling that he’s thinking he can wear you down.” She told Sampson that he’d not be able to do that. “Good for you, honey. I’ve already let the jail know not to forward any more calls to you. Also, I’ve hired a staff to take care of things here. They’ll start in the morning.”

  “I’m assuming that they’re not going to be your regular run of the mill staff, are they?” He told her that they were a mixture of faeries and shifters. “This is to keep me safe, I’m guessing.”

  “No. I’m not worried about you being safe at all. Let’s just say that it’s to keep whoever is stupid enough to try and harm you safe long enough that I can kill them when I get there.” Allie asked him if he was serious. “Yes.”

  The way he said it, just a simple yes, shouldn’t have conveyed so much to her. But it did. Not only did it tell her that she was never going to be hurt, but that anyone that tried to hurt her would really be killed by him. Not easily either, if she had to guess.

  When Able, as he asked them to call him, came to the house, she was glad to see that he seemed to be an honest man, as well as someone that she could trust. There was a difference to her. Someone that she could trust didn’t always mean that they were honest. Nor vice versa.

  “I have those recordings should you want them now. They’re only copies, but I have the originals. Also, I have my text messages from the three of them. They’ve been certified as coming from their accounts to my phone on the dates. The attorney for the cell phone company that I have has been helpful in getting this organized in case they were ever caught.” He asked her why she’d not turned them in. “Oh, I did. Every time I heard from any of them, I did. The police thought that it was simply me trying to get back at them. Since Serenity had never used her name except for the Lisa Dawn thing, they would never believe that I was related to them. Even when I showed them the recordings from when Howie notified me that he’d killed our parents.”

  “Howard told you that he killed them? What did the
police say to that?” She shrugged. “I see. I’m beginning to see a lot of things about this case that shouldn’t have happened. Did you know that Howard was in on quite a few other deaths? Ones where he would go to the door and say that he was hungry or something. Then once he was inside, he’d allow the other two in so they could all rob them.” Allie told Able that she knew of those as well. “And no one has done a damned thing to stop them? I have to tell you, young lady, I’m going to have to go after that police department next.”

  “My friend works there. He’d tell me what they were doing about my leads and call ins. They kept saying it was a prank call. Finally, after they didn’t believe me after my parents were dead, I just gave up.” Able said that he could understand that. “Howie called me after I’d found their bodies. I hadn’t heard from them in a couple of days, and I couldn’t get them by phone. Going there and finding them was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Howie told me that not only had he killed them on his own but that he’d made them suffer too. The suffering part is what got me the hardest. How could a son do those things to his own parents? He even sent me a recording of the murders, with him dancing around for the camera as well as keeping up a monologue about everything he was doing. He said it was to make me feel like I’d been there. I was ill for several days after that.”

  “And you have this? The recording of him killing them?” Nodding, Allie handed him the thumb drive that she’d only just made for the man. “I’m going to watch this. Is that all right with you? If you have to leave the room, I will find you when I’m finished.”

  “We’ll be in the kitchen. Sampson and I have enough food if you’d like to join us.” Able told her that was very nice of her. “Thank you. But you might not think that once you’re finished with the thumb drive I made you.”

  Allie reached for Sampson to hold onto him. She wasn’t in any way changing her mind about this. It was just a case of remembering too much right now. Hanging onto Sampson was like getting a better grip on her life and sanity, but also, he was comforting to her in a way that no one had ever tried to be before.

  “I love you, Allie. With all my heart, I love you.” She told him that she loved him as well, and would forever. “When this is finished, we’re going to see the world, you and I. And when we return, we’ll figure out how to make this house a home.”

  “So long as you’re in it with me, wherever we lay down at night is a home. So long as I can hear your heart beating when I’m falling to sleep and wake up in your arms in the morning. That’s home.”

  With a quick kiss, she got out the steaks. The potatoes had been in the oven for the last hour, and there were extras. While she was making up the salad, Sampson got the grill ready.

  The hot tub had arrived about an hour after they’d gotten up this morning, and she couldn’t wait to relax in the sucker. She needed to be loosened up before she was able to face Morgan and Kenny. They weren’t going to like what she had to say to them. Or perhaps this might be just what they wanted. Either way, she was finished being a bartender for a while.

  Chapter 7

  It had been one hell of a week. Sampson had been playing around in his new garden as much as he could, which turned out to be not that often. Allie was meeting with Able about four nights out of five, and she was stressed out. Not only that, but there had been several calls to their home from the police that were keeping an eye on Howie to let her know what he was doing.

  That didn’t bother him as much as he thought it should, Howie telling everyone that his big sister had abandoned him, laying it on a little thick that he was just a little boy and that she’d left him to rot in jail. He’d made it sound, Sampson had heard, like he’d not done a damned thing wrong, and it was Allie’s fault. Sure it was.

  Then there were the things going on in town. Nothing too bad. Everyone was gearing up for not just school, but also the fundraiser that his dad had been in charge of when Mom had passed on. Now that she was back, Sampson knew it was going to be much larger. Not to say that Dad hadn’t done a wonderful job, but Mom could squeeze a dollar out of a nickel, she was that good.

  There was also the committee being formed for the revitalization of the downtown area. Laughing to himself, he really thought it was being very hoity calling it a downtown. It consisted of a bank, a shop that sold used baskets and such, as well as a barbershop. Complete with the rolling sign designed to make sure that even people who couldn’t read knew that it was a shop to get a haircut and a shave.

  Just lately, Sampson had noticed that the downtown area had fallen to disrepair. Of the few places that were still in operation, there were three times that many that had been closed up for years. There had been another bank that had closed its doors about four years ago. A pizza place that had closed because it was difficult to find a parking spot on Friday nights when a football game was going on. Then there were the five businesses, ranging from another basket shop to a clothing store, which had closed down around the time the bank did.

  The city no longer fixed sidewalks but sent out notices that everyone was responsible for their own. When a tree or something was knocked down due to high winds, again, the homeowner was the person who had to take care of it, even if it was tangled in electrical lines or such. It had been his family who was called when those sorts of things happened.

  The water department no longer had someone at the office full time. There just wasn’t enough money for it, and oftentimes when you needed someone to help out, they were out of town or simply not answering their phones. Sampson didn’t think anyone had been paid for that job in a couple of decades.

  The committee was gearing up to have higher taxes put on the ballet to hire a company to come in and fix a lot of the issues that were just things a city should be doing. The issue with the higher taxes was that there were very few homes in the city limits any longer, and those were the only people that were able to vote on things that had to do with city ordinances.

  Then there were the schools. Sampson and his family had helped build the big building that was the grade school. At one time, it had held all the students in the same building. But as the town had grown around the business that had employed most of the people in their town, so had the need for a larger school. Almost as soon as the high school had been finished, the business, a basket company, had lost its CEO to cancer, and everything went to pot.

  Now there were not many places to work that were close, and it seemed to Sampson that, daily it seemed, another business was going out. Even restaurants, places that people could justify using when they were broke and needed a treat, couldn’t make it in their town.

  “Are you going to run for the president of the committee?” He asked his dad, who’d startled him when he spoke, why he thought he’d do something like that. “I was only asking. I think I could do a good job at it. I sure know how to talk to people. Where is that wife of yours?”

  “You do at that, Dad. And Allie is working on her bike to get it ready for the winter months. She hasn’t had a place she could store it before and is happy about that. Not to mention, it was her only mode of transportation, so she’s happy with that as well. Why do you ask?” Dad stared at him for several seconds but didn’t comment. Not sure what bug was up his butt, Sampson asked about his first question. “Why do they need a president? I mean, why can’t they just appoint someone to be in charge? Not that I don’t think you’d be able to do it, but that seems like an over the top sort of title.”

  “The person in charge would have several people working under him. Like there would be someone to set up meetings with different people. The funding person. They’d be in charge of seeing how much we’d be able to help a new business coming in. Also, there were be someone to do all the advertising. I guess for things like fundraisers and stuff like that. Your mom wants to work on that part. I think she’s a shoo-in for that job.”

  “I’d say so too. But will the two of yo
u be able to work together? I mean, Mom was just saying how much you get under her feet. And if I remember correctly, three times this week, you had a bouquet of blossoms with some candy. Dad, it’s only Thursday. Doesn’t that usually mean you’re in trouble? Again?” Dad told him that he loved Mom. “I know you do, Dad. But you can get on her last nerve. As I’m sure, she might get on yours. Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t do this. But think about trying to get Mom to reschedule something when you have other plans. You know as well as I do that football season is like your food for the fall. Then there is basketball season, baseball season. What are you going to do when she puts something on the calendar on the day that you want to watch a big game?”

  “I never thought of that.” Sampson put his shovel in the ground, then watched his dad pace. He’d work it out, or he’d not run. Dad no more wanted to be on Mom’s bad side than any of them did. “She’d not care if it was the best game of the year, either. Not that she’d do it on purpose. But she’d have to do it, and I’d be fussing at her about it.”

  Not saying anything, Sampson dug another hole for the trees that he was putting in the back yard. When he was finished, he knew that the faeries would come and give them a boost so that they’d be nearly full grown in an hour. But for now, Sampson needed the peace and relaxation of doing something physical.

  “Did I tell you about the meeting with Morgan and his mate? It went much better than Allie had hoped. Morgan was sick of being a cop, I guess, and Kenny’s been having so much fun being the bartender that Morgan has called off work just to be with him. And the place is showing a nice profit too.” Dad asked him if they’d talked about the clientele. “You mean the vampires coming in? I don’t think Allie cares all that much now that she sold them the place. She’d worked pretty hard on getting the thing up and running. She told me that she thought that was why she did it. Not so much to actually run it. I understand that.”