Morgan: Robinson Destruction – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  Tru’s life was nothing that she’d ever want. While her kids drove her insane most of the time, her sister’s life was empty. She had a job, Shasta knew, but she rarely if ever took any time off for herself. And she would never watch the kids for her because she was forever out of town. When Tru hugged the three of them, Shasta asked her what was going on.

  “Nothing. I just figured you’d be here because it’s the first of the month, and came to see what else you had planned for the day.” Shasta said she didn’t have anything going on. “And you call my life boring. I’m going out of town in the morning, and I wanted to come by and tell you. I’ve got someone watching the house, but I didn’t want you to worry if you didn’t see me for a few weeks.”

  “Tru, I rarely see you more than once a month as it is. While I’m happy that you told me that you were leaving, I probably wouldn’t have noticed you were gone unless it was a couple of months before I saw you.” Tru laughed. That was another thing about her sister. She never seemed to understand when someone was insulting her. “Are you taking that brute of a dog with you?”

  “You know that I am. I don’t go anywhere without Charlie.” She tickled the kids and asked them if they were ready for school to start soon. “I bet you are. I loved school when I was there.”

  “You didn’t go for that long, Tru, so it would be difficult for you to relate to most children about school for that reason.” True shrugged, and Shasta noticed that she seemed to be looking around. “Is there someone else you’re here to see? I thought that you’d come to see me.”

  “I did, and no, I’m not seeing anyone else here. We’re leaving in the morning. I just came by to give you that information.” Shasta thanked her, and when her sister left them, she realized that all the food that she’d tossed out in the little basket was back in her cart. She could hear her sister laughing as she made her way out of the store.

  After taking twenty minutes to load all her things on the conveyor belt, taking out the food that she didn’t want, Shasta was on her way home. The kids were yelling about having lunch out, and she was just exhausted enough to do it today. She could not wait until they were all back in school so she could have a minute’s peace.

  While she helped the kids with their meals—why were catsup packets so difficult to open? —she thought about what to have for dinner. Her husband wouldn’t be home for dinner, and she thought about just ordering a pizza. But two meals that she hadn’t cooked for her kids was too much, so she tried to think of the easiest thing she could put together. The lure of pizza kept coming back to her.

  Trying to think of something else, her thoughts went back to her sister. Tru’s real name was Trudy. Trudy Justice. Shasta had always thought that her choice of nickname was ridiculous, since her name became Tru Justice. But if it didn’t bother her sister that much, she would keep her mouth shut about it. Grandma Jenny had named her that. And no one ever went against Grandma Jenny when she declared something to be finished.

  Shasta had never been to her sister’s home. She knew that it was a nice one on a nice street. But since she’d moved into it without consulting her about it first, Shasta had decided that she wasn’t going to go there. It really wasn’t that Tru had to consult her on such things, but it would have been nice since she was the older of the two of them. Getting the kids into the car, she thought that if more people would consult her on things, then they would be better. Like the Parent Teachers Association.

  Shasta being the president for four years straight had made the school money. They had new playground equipment, as well as new uniforms for the little peewee football players. She’d been so proud of her accomplishments that she would only mention it a few times each meeting that she’d been the one who had worked the hardest to get them in the position they were in. Then at Monday’s meeting, she’d been asked to step down.

  “What? I don’t understand why you’d even ask me to do something like that. No, I won’t step down. I’m the only one that works this hard, and you know it.” The principal told her that it was time to give someone else a shot at it. “So they can mess up all my hard work? No, I don’t think so. I’ve made this the way it should have been years ago.”

  “Mrs. Arnold, you don’t even have kids going to this school. Since your son was sent to private school we’ve allowed you to have an extra term. But it’s time for you to retire your position here and allow someone else to take the job. Someone that has children here.” She had asked him what that had to do with anything. “Because, as I have pointed out to you before, on several occasions, you must have a child in the school for you to be voted in. I don’t even know how you got this last term, when I know for a fact that you were voted out.”

  “I simply won’t have it, Principal Collins. I won’t. And the reason that I’m still here is because everyone knows that I get the job done.” He told her he was sorry, but she was to no longer show up at meetings or they would get her for trespassing. Like they were really going to do that.

  Putting the groceries away was finished up and the boys were watching television. Shasta went out on the deck and looked around their back yard. She really wanted to do some improvements there, but Mike, her husband, had told her that she could have the yard or private school for Sam. She knew where her priorities were, and she opted for the school.

  Shasta wanted a pool, with a nice pool house beside it. The single tree that graced their back yard was dying, and she hadn’t known why until a few weeks ago, when she caught Sam showing Jacob how to pee on it. She had beat his bottom hard, then sent him to bed without his supper. Mike had thought it was the funniest thing ever, and had not only allowed Sam to have dinner with them, but he also gave him a high five about doing his business outside.

  Mike was having an affair—she was almost positive about that. He no longer wanted to have sex with her, and that was the only reason that she could come up with. For a while she thought that he was having one with her sister. Tru told her that she didn’t care all that much for Mike, and wouldn’t have sex with him if he had a golden cock that had been blessed by a high priestess. Sometimes the things that spilled from her sister’s mouth made her wonder if they were related at all.

  Walking into the kitchen to figure out dinner, she was surprised to see the television on. While she didn’t care for what the staff did while they were on their own time, when they were on hers, they’d better be paying attention to her and what she wanted finished up.

  Before she could tell them to get back to work, the cook told her that she was so sorry. The tone and the way that she said it made Shasta think that she wasn’t the least bit sorry for not working. Then she heard the name of her husband’s firm mentioned on the television.

  Turning it up to hear, she saw her husband of ten years being escorted out of his building with his hands in cuffs, with his jacket over it. She might not have known it was him, but she’d just picked that tie out for him to wear today.

  “...arrested in conjunction with a yearlong investigation of Mr. Arnold’s business. He’s been arrested for tax fraud and money laundering so far. There are other charges that were being listed, but this reporter, along with a great many others, was cut off when the FBI showed up.” Shasta felt a chair hit her in the back of the knees. Sitting down, she listened to the woman reporter say each of the names of those that had been arrested so far.

  She had no idea how long she sat there. The news droned on for hours, it seemed like. Each time they showed the front of the Justice Building, a building that her parents and grandparents had built, they would put up a picture of her husband. Mike, in his nice suit and freshly cut hair, looked so happy in his employee photo.

  When someone knocked on the front door, she didn’t even bother moving. Whoever it was, she didn’t want to talk to them. Getting up when the person knocked harder, Shasta wiped her tears away and made her way to the door.

  Slamming the door almos
t as soon as the microphone was shoved in her face, Shasta was able to lock it too. Looking out the peephole, as she should have done in the first place, she could not believe how many people where there.

  There were news vans out there that she’d never heard of. Local ones too that were setting up their equipment all over her yard and the sidewalk beyond. She started to go out and tell them to get off her flowers when she realized that might be just what they wanted. For her to go outside so that they could find out what she knew.

  Trying to call Mike, all she got was his voice mail. Shasta should have figured that they would have taken his phone away from him. But she wanted answers, and having to leave him a recording wasn’t getting her anywhere.

  When the door opened behind her, Shasta was pushed away and knocked to her knees. Her father came in, and did not look like he was happy. Neither, for that matter, did her mom.

  “What the Sam Hill has that man done to my company? Do you have any idea how long and hard we had to work to make it the company it is...well, what it was before this? Good Christ, I’m going to kill him.” Mom told Dad to hush, the kids could hear him. “I’m sure they’re going to be hearing a lot more than a few cuss words when they go to school next. With this shit out there, Shasta darling, I’d not send them anywhere. Where is Tru?”

  “I don’t know. She came by today when I was out shopping, and told me she was going to be gone for a while. Where does she go?” Dad just turned his back to her and she looked at her Mom. “What does Tru do for a living that she can’t be here in my hour of need? Do you know?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. I’m sure that whatever it is, she’s enjoying herself.” Her parents had always been so proud of Tru, yet neither of them knew what she did for a living. She asked if Tru might be a hooker or something. “Don’t be jealous, Shasta. Tru is a good girl, and whatever she’s doing, you know that we’re proud of her. We are you too, but you will remember that we told you not to marry Mike.”

  “What has he done to bring you down on him now?” Then Shasta remembered the news reporting. “That might not even be his fault—have either of you thought of that? I swear, why am I always having to defend him to you? He’s a good man, and a great father.”

  “He’s neither of those. And he is responsible for this mess. I told the FBI what he was doing months ago.” Shasta looked at her dad when he spoke. “I knew what he was doing the moment you convinced me that he needed to have a job to make himself feel like he was part of the family. Well, look at what he’s done to make himself a wonderful part of it. He’s ruined my company.”

  “Dad, you told on him?” He said of course he had. “Why would you do that? Why didn’t you just tell him to stop? This is going to ruin me for all my clubs, and the things that I’m in charge of around town.”

  “Shasta, you’re only thinking of yourself again. That’s not right.” Shasta looked at her mom. “You know as well as I do that he’s not been a good father. He’s barely been a husband to you. We’ve been carrying your finances for the last year, did he tell you that?”

  “No. Why would you have to do that?” Dad answered from the living room where the boys were. “What do you mean he invested our money badly? That’s not possible. We have plenty of money. Why, I’ve been able to put Sam in private school, we’re doing so well.”

  “We got him in that school to shut you up.” Shasta looked at her mom again. “You were harping on us so much about it that it was either tell you what we knew, which we weren’t supposed to do, or pay for it. He’s going to have to drop out of that now. I’m not going to be paying for your bills and ours when you have a husband that is going to prison.”

  Shasta wanted them to go away and leave her alone. They were both saying mean and cruel things to her. When she asked them to leave her home, Dad said that she needed to know what was what. She asked him what he was talking about.

  “Three months ago I noticed that the bank notes weren’t covered. Nor was payroll. I hired me someone to have a look into it, and found that Mike was skimming money from all the accounts to cover the shit he was snorting up his nose. Not to mention the two women that he has set up in apartments around town. I thought about going to him about it, even tried to get in to see him, and was told that Mike didn’t want to talk to me right now. So I made my way to the police. Then the Feds.” Shasta asked again why no one had told her. “Because they didn’t know, and neither did we, if you were helping him out. You have to admit, you’ve been spending money on things like you had it.”

  “I thought we did have it.” She looked around her home and realized how much was new. She’d been spending money to try and make Mike stay at home with her. “He’s having an affair too?”

  “Yes. As far as I could find out, he’s been having them since the day you married the ass hole.”

  The room started to fuzz in and out until she felt herself tilting out of her chair. It was too much. All this was just too much for her.

  ~*~

  Huston never watched television while he was working. The music could be blasting away, but the television was a major distraction. Putting the next pot on the shelf beside him, he heard the stereo change to the next disc. Before he could wonder what was up next, the room was blasting with his favorite band, one that he’d seen in concert more times than he could remember.

  Working on the next pot, he was startled when the music was suddenly turned down. He looked up to see his mother coming in the room with him, and she was talking. Since his ears were still ringing from when the thing had been loud, he had to ask her to repeat herself.

  “Why do you have a phone when you’re not answering it?” He told her that he never had his phone on him when he was working. “Then you’re going to have to find a different way of hearing when I call you, Houston. I’ve been ringing you for the last hour. Have you heard what is going on in Cincinnati?”

  “Why would I care about what is going on in a city three hours away?” She asked him where the television was. “I don’t have one out here. Just tell me, Mom. You have me nervous now.”

  “Justice and Arnold just went under. Mike Arnold—you know him, correct?” Houston nodded as his mom continued. “Mike has been arrested for tax fraud. They’ve got him on a lot of other charges too. Trafficking. Drugs. Prostitution. The man has a wife and children with two mistresses around town too.”

  “Lucky man.” Mom smacked him upside the head. “You know that I’m a grown man, right?”

  “Then start acting like it.” Houston kissed her on the cheek and asked her if she wanted some tea to calm her nerves. “Yes, I think I do. Oh Houston, I’m sorry I took it out on you, but that man. Why do I just now have a memory of you and him having a huge falling out when you were in college?”

  “We did. Over his now wife, Shasta.” Mom asked if she’d been his mate. “No, it wasn’t like that. He was dating Shasta, and told me it was getting very serious. Then an hour or so later I find him feeling up some other woman. He said that it was all fun and games.”

  “I guess he never changed his ways much.”

  Houston brewed his mom a cup of tea and one for himself. He loved hot tea, but wasn’t so fond of cold tea. But Houston could drink gallons of water without pausing to go to the bathroom. He simply loved the cold clean taste of it.

  “What do you suppose is going to happen to Shasta now? I mean, they have two little boys.” His mom seemed genuinely concerned.

  “I don’t know. But I’d not get too worried about her. She’s like a cat. Shasta always lands on her feet. If she can’t get whatever she wants by conventional means, she simply bullies a person into giving it to her.” Mom asked him why he’d bothered about her and Mike then. “I’ve never been sure about that. As far back as I can remember, Shasta has been like that. Her parents are about the nicest people you could ever want to meet. Mister’s name is Blake Justice, and his wife is Trudy. I t
hink there was another kid, but I never saw it. Why were you so hyped up about me seeing this, Mom?”

  “I haven’t any idea now. For some reason I had it in my head that you and Mike were friends. I thought that you’d be sad to hear about him.” Houston hugged her, and then thanked his mom for caring about him. “I guess I didn’t want you to find out about it later when you overheard something. Rogen is looking into things too. She was, I guess, before it came out in the papers.”

  “You didn’t ask her about it, did you?” Mom told him that she wasn’t insane. “Yes, well, she can be a bit protective of her work. Anna is doing a good job working with her, did you hear that?”

  “I did. But I hate that they had to delay their trip for it. I think that Morgan was planning this big to do with her and the kids.” Houston had heard that too, but he was sure that Morgan was a big boy and could make other plans with his family. “Houston, can I ask you a personal question?”

  “You can. But you’d better be prepared for the answer.” She smiled at him. “Mom, I don’t like that look. What are you stewing up in that beautiful mind of yours?”

  “Oh, nothing like that. Trust me when I tell you, I’m never setting you up again.” He said that he hoped not. “What I wanted to ask you is, are you making enough money at this? I want you to be happy. I do more than anything, but I don’t want you to starve either. Or your mate to starve when she comes. If you ever come out of here, that is. How long do you work at this every day?”

  “Not as much as my agent wants me to. And yes, I make very good money at playing in the mud.” He got up to get his last commission check. He wasn’t bragging, never that, but he also didn’t want her to worry about him. “I got that for a three day showing that I didn’t even have to attend. It took me about a year to get that much done, and another month for me to get things boxed up and shipped overseas.”