by Jillian Neal
“They had plans to steal from some of the wealthiest people associated with the military?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Why are you in here with them?” I demanded.
“The check bounced. I saw them loading their car. They were going to leave without paying.”
“Oh my gosh!” Hannah gasped. Every eye in the room turned to stare at her. “You weren’t supposed to let them win Griff! That’s what you messed up!”
Unadulterated fury lit in Victoria’s eyes.
“She’s a total screw-up,” Gladys huffed.
Oh, my baby had struck a chord. “Keep going,” I urged.
“You couldn’t get the biggest donors to attend because Homefront Heroes didn’t actually sanction this event, right?”
Megan erupted. “I’m so sick of having golf-tournaments and galas. I knew this could make real money if I could get the board’s support. I thought I could secure a higher position if I proved myself with this event, but Edward wouldn’t sign off on a bachelor auction. I needed to be chairman to get them to vote to pay for my brother’s experimental treatments. When they backed out, I had to do something. I thought if I made a big contribution to the foundation maybe they’d still help me with Mitch’s transportation and treatments. Victoria told me she could help me. But then she was furious with me. I didn’t understand why until now. I swear.”
Hannah shook her head. “When you came up short on A-list donors, they set their sights on me. They wanted to win the guys who they thought made the most money, but, mostly, they wanted access to my checking account number which would have been on the check if I’d won.”
“It just never occurred to me. I thought they wanted me to pick out the guys who made the most money, so maybe they’d be shown a good time this week. I thought they wanted the men to buy things for them or at least pay for a nice dinner or two. I had no idea they were planning to steal from them.”
“Doubt that stands up in court.” One of the officers shook his head.
“Especially since someone provided them this.” I pulled that damned printout from my pocket and handed it over. “If you didn’t know what they were after, how did they get that?”
“I swear. I thought they had a lot of money because their husbands left them everything. I had to pay for this whole thing myself. The first few checks they gave me cleared, and that’s how I secured the deposit here. They said they needed the list of big donors so they could contact them about the event. I thought they were helping me. Now, I can’t pay the rest I’m going to owe the hotel, and I’ll have nothing for Mitch. The hotel let me use the ballrooms as long as the guests for the event stayed in the suites.”
“That explains the cut-rate food and decor.” I sighed. Jesus, this was a deep shithole. “Their first few installments were just a down payment because they thought you were going to be turning over a ballroom full of marks.” I turned to the cops. “If you’ll search their car, you’ll find numerous prescription bottles none of which belong to them. Several people staying here are missing their meds. Talk to the front desk. The narcs and the Viagra help you put on the crazy-old-lady routines, right? Also might ease the occasional wear and tear on the body from running state to state conning people. Stealing meds from hotel rooms, that was Gladys’s job right?”
“How did you know that?” Edith gasped.
“The gloves. Always with the gloves. Fingerprints and DNA evidence are a real bitch when you’re breaking and entering. You hung around for the dinner last night as a last ditch effort to get some info off of Hannah before you skipped town today.”
The officer holding Victoria Rutherford cleared his throat. “We have warrants for the suite and the car. Your friend T knew what was up. Tier Seven always does right by us.”
“We try. But there was a bogus waiter here the night of the auction. I can’t quite figure out how he fits into all of this, but if you can find him he’s got a credit card skimmer,” I supplied the police.
“Chad?” Edith scoffed. “He’s Vicky’s nephew. Had a falling out with his dad. Came to stay with us. Leave him out of it. He’s a good kid.”
“Shut up, Edith,” Victoria seethed.
“Let’s go, ladies. Ms. Mallory, I’m taking you in as well. We’re gonna need you to explain all of this again to the detectives.” The police officers produced four sets of cuffs.
Hannah stopped one of the cops. “If you arrest her officially, call me. I’ll cover the bail. And Megan, after you get this all sorted out, call my office. I know what it’s like to watch your big brother hurt. I know how helpless you must feel. I’ll pay for your brother’s transport, and I’ll talk to Ms. Donahue about Homefront helping to cover the treatments as long as all of the donation money actually goes to the foundation.”
“Thank you.” Before they cuffed her, Megan threw her arms around Hannah. “Thank you so much.”
“Wait,” she called before they led them all out, “how did you figure out I’d entered Griff, and why were you so upset when you found out he’s a Beret?”
If Megan had rolled her eyes any harder she could’ve checked out her own ass. “I knew as soon as I saw you in the lobby with him. You looked at him like you wanted to climb him like a tree.”
The smirk was going to be a permanent fixture on my face at least until we landed in Boise. “That’s why she came by my suite with those rules. You went to Hannah’s suite first, didn’t you? She wasn’t there, and that’s when you decided to see if she was already with me.”
Ms. Mallory gave another nod.
“Because Hannah was the only person who’d had any experience with Homefront fundraisers prior to this event. She was the wild card you needed to contain. When you found us in the lobby, you saw your chance. If you made her believe you’d spread bad press about Palindrome because she’d broken some made up rule, maybe she would decide not to notice how fucked up your auction was,” I concluded. Damn that felt good.
Hannah shook her head. “I wish you’d just asked me for my help.”
“I wish anyone on the board would listen to me,” Ms. Mallory came right back.
“Oh, I bet they’ll listen now. Take them.” I gestured to the door.
“I haven’t finished answering her questions.” Megan tried unsuccessfully to jerk away from the cop holding her. “Mitch always hated the Special Forces guys. Said they thought they were more god than man. But the thing he hated most was that they seem to really be. I knew if anything went wrong, he would be the one that figured it all out.”
“But I wasn’t,” I pointed out. “Hannah was.”
47
Hannah
“Can I ask you something?” I couldn’t stand the quiet anymore. He’d been staring out the window for the last half hour. We were making our final approach into Boise. I think he would’ve actually preferred it if we’d been landing in some war torn nation.
“Anything, baby.” The hollow thrum of his voice made me shiver. His eyes had lost all of the life I’d seen in them the past few days.
“Did you ever tell your father that you found your mom?” As soon as they’d completed the private investigation course they all took as the final piece of the training they’d decided they wanted Tier Seven to offer, Griff had put his new skills to work. In less than forty-eight hours, he’d found his mother working in some dive bar in Missoula, Montana. That was when he’d figured out that his father had been lying to him for most of his life.
“No.” Griff took another measured sip of the Coke the flight attendant had poured for him.
“Are you going to?”
“No idea. I plan to make my appearance at the hospital, make sure he’s not being a dick to the staff, go feed the damn dog, and then take you back to Vegas.”
“We could stay here tonight. It’s been a long day. We can always go back tomorrow.”
“Whatever you want to do.”
I had no idea what I wanted to do except to make him smile again. “I’d kind of
like to see where you grew up if you wouldn’t hate it.” Maybe there were a few good memories we could unearth from the cloud of resentment he’d cast over the entire state of Idaho.
He snorted. That was not a good sign. “There’s not much to see. It’s a bunch of godforsaken fields and the potatoes that are forced to endure life in Weed Patch.”
Definitely time to change the subject. “I think Ryder has a crush on you.”
That got me a mere glimmer of my favorite smirk. “He’s a good kid.”
“He kinda reminds me of you minus your rugged good looks.” I laced my fingers through his.
“Poor guy. My good looks are all I have going for me.” He squeezed my hand. “That and my baby.”
“Always.”
With a slight bounce, the wheels touched down in Boise, Idaho. As we unloaded, I opened my Uber app. “I’ll get us a ride.”
“Doubt you can Uber out here in bumblefuck, baby.”
“Stop it. You can Uber anywhere.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you if a tractor drives up with a hay wagon to take us to the hospital.”
I shook my head at him. “I’d pay good money to see that.”
When a Kia Hatchback parked in front of us, I laughed. “Quite the tractor.”
“Dad better fucking still have my Jeep in the barn because I am not Ubering around for however long we have to be here.”
As he folded himself into the hatchback, I brushed a kiss on his cheek. “I love you even when you’re grumpy.”
His chest expanded with a deep breath. “I’ll try to man-up.”
“I’ll see if I can’t come up with reasons to make you smile. So, your dad has your old Jeep?” A deluge of memories flooded through my mind. That Jeep had been everything when I was nineteen. It was the ticket to him.
“He better. I gave it to him when his truck finally gave up the ghost. Not like I had a lot of use for it in Iraq.”
“That was sweet of you.”
He went back to grunting then. The rolling hills surrounding us slowly swallowed up the remaining sunlight. We passed a low billboard advertising things to see in Idaho as we drove toward the hospital. My lips folded under the force of my teeth to keep from scandalizing our driver who had, what appeared to be, a solar-powered dancing Jesus and his twelve disciples on the dash of his car.
“What?” Griff elbowed me.
“There’s actually a place here called Beaver Canyon?” A slight giggle escaped.
And there was my smirk. “Yeah, Beaver Creek runs through it. Tends to swell when I roll back into town.” He winked at me.
Maybe it was all of the insanity of our day or just my need to make him grin, but I doubled over laughing. To my delight, he joined me.
“You’re adorable you know that?” His arm draped over my shoulder and pulled me closer. “Hey, why the hell did you just drive past South Vista?” he demanded of the driver.
I watched the driver’s eyes goggle in the rearview. “There’s a potato and lentil festival on the capitol grounds this evening, sir. There will be traffic on Main.”
“A carb carnival. Of course.”
Despite Griff’s protesting the way the driver had gone, we arrived at St. Luke’s Medical Center a few minutes later. Griff slung his duffle bag over his shoulder and carried the small bag I’d thrown my toothbrush, a nightie, and a few outfits into.
As we made our way inside the hospital, I kept my thumb rubbing over the pencil case in my bag.
“Hey, Hannah…I meant to say thank you for coming with me,” he offered.
“That’s how relationships work, babe.”
A cringe formed instantly on his features as soon as we stepped through the sliding doors. “I hate hospitals,” he spat.
Since he’d spent almost six-months inside Walter Reed, I couldn’t blame him. We rode the elevator to the fourth-floor cardiac unit. He guided us toward the check-in desk. “Uh, Duke Haywood’s room, please.”
Before the woman behind the desk could respond, an infuriated bellow echoed from down the hallway. “I have boils on my ass older than you. You fucking playing dress-up in that getup or something? Find me a real damned doctor and food that wasn’t manufactured by Goodyear.”
Griff’s eyes squeezed shut. “Never mind.”
Like he was on a forced death march, he towed me toward his father’s room. “You don’t have to come in,” he offered.
“I’ll be just fine.”
“You’re gonna wear a hole in your pencil case if you keep that up. I’m not sure I could find that little outdoor mall thing where we got it again.” He gestured to my hand shoved down in my bag.
I’d suspected all along that it was Griff, not Smith, who had actually picked out my case. I’d ask him about that later. “Sorry.” I eased my hand away.
“It’s fine, baby. I just hate this whole thing is making you that nervous.”
To prove my own bravery, I marched into the room ahead of Griff.
The doctor, who’d just gotten yelled at, sized me up before her gaze ascended to Griff. “And the wayward son returns. Hey there, Griff.” When she stated his name like a curse, I had a decent idea the role she’d probably played in his past.
“Do I know you?” Griff spat. Clearly, he did not.
“Wow,” she sneered.
I didn’t know a great deal about his life before me, but I knew he’d had a rebellious streak several counties wide before he’d joined the army on his eighteenth birthday. Forcing a smile, I offered her my hand. “I’m Hannah Hagen, Griff’s girlfriend.”
She whipped off a rubber glove and thrust her freezing cold hand into mine. “Dr. Emma Taylor. Believe I was given that same status for the week it took him to get me in the back of his truck in high school.” I forced a smile but kept an eye on Griff. His brow furrowed, realization widened his eyes, and then he cringed. I shook my head at him.
“Well, isn’t that…something. How are you feeling Duke?” If I ignored her, maybe she’d go away.
“He’ll be just fine as long as he changes his diet, stops smoking, and gets some exercise. He was very lucky. The damage to the heart muscle was minimal,” Emma informed me.
“’Bout damn time you came to see me,” Duke spat in Griff’s general direction.
“’Bout damn time you stop treating your doctors like an ass and do what they say.” Clearly, Griff was not planning to take any shit off of his father.
Duke mumbled something about lady doctors. It was going to be a long night. Emma still had Griff locked in the death-ray glare coming from her eyes. Girl could certainly hold a grudge. It took a full-minute for me to realize there was another woman in the room.
Her dedication to the windblown look, as evidenced by the sheer amount of hairspray shellacked in her bleach blonde hair, had clearly survived the last three decades. Seated in a chair near Duke’s bed, she offered me a meek smile. “I’m Georgia. Duke’s lady friend.” Unlike Griff’s mother, who’d been twenty years younger than his dad, Georgia looked to be about Duke’s age. How she managed to put up with him I didn’t know.
Judging by the bewildered expression on Griff’s face, I assumed he was unaware his father had a lady friend.
“Yeah, Georgie, this is Hannah, the woman my son shoulda married years ago, but he’s too much of a dumbass to get it done before he went and got his self blown up.” Duke made quite the introduction.
“My Glock is in my bag,” Griff spoke through his teeth. “Just…shoot me now.”
“I’d really rather not.” I offered Georgia my hand as well. “It’s lovely to meet you. How long have you and Duke been dating?”
“We go play Canasta at the senior center on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Duke takes me to services every Sunday. Been that way for a while now.”
“My father goes to church?” Griff gasped.
“Every Sunday. We’re working on not taking the Lord’s name in vain, but he’s improving.”
“You let me know how that goes.”
>
“Well, I’ll leave you all to visit. Duke, please eat the salad we’ve provided you. You’re going to be eating a lot of them while you’re here,” Emma chastised.
“Needs salt,” Duke argued.
“No salt.” She gave Griff one final scowl before she left the room.
“It’s so nice of you to come home, Griff. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Georgia eased.
“I swear I’m not quite as bad as I’m sure he made me sound.”
Her laughter was kind. So far, I liked Georgia. “He’s really very proud of you. Duke’s just very passionate about things.”
Griff studied her like some kind of alien being might be using her as a host pod. “Whatever you say.”
“Did you feed the dog?” Duke asked as he picked at the salad on the rolling tray.
“Not yet, Dad. We came here first.” Griff settled on a padded bench near the window and pulled me down beside him.
“That was sweet of you. Wasn’t it Duke?” Georgia insisted.
“Boy always has done everything he could to get out of chores.”
Griff glanced toward heaven, but I couldn’t be sure if he was pleading for someone to take his father on now or if wanted to make the trip himself.
“Is there anything you’d like us to get you before we go feed the dog, sir?” I asked.
“Do not call him sir,” Griff spat. “Sir is reserved for people actually deserving of your respect. He is a windbag with a bad attitude.”
“Fine way to talk to your father.” Duke leaned up in the bed.
“Oh, I’m sorry, if you’d ever really been a father maybe I’d have nicer shit to say to you. I’m here. Did I seriously catch a fucking flight from Vegas so I could feed your dog or did you actually want to see me?”
“I see the sinful use of coarse language runs in the family.” Georgia patted Griff’s hand.
“Don’t speak that way in front of Georgia,” Duke shouted.
“Jesus Christ, are you serious right now?”