Larson: McCullough’s Jamboree – Erotic Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  “All right.” She turned back to her computer, then looked at him. “I love you, Larson. Thank you so much for being so understanding and wonderful to me.”

  “I love you as well.”

  He left her there, with Sam sleeping on her chest and her fingers racing over the keys. He was loving domestic life a lot more than he’d thought he would. Finding his dad working in the kitchen, he explained to him what he needed. In less than an hour they had Virginia set up in the dining room and a crew in her office moving things around. It was going to be a long day, and he loved it.

  ~~~

  Harley hung up the phone and stared at the envelope in front of him. It had arrived over an hour ago, and he wasn’t sure what was going on any more than when he’d opened it up. His accounts had been seized. He looked at Dusty when he came into his office.

  “I can’t get to my money.” Dusty asked him why not. “The bank said that the federal government came in and told them that they were to put a lock on my accounts, as well as all my credit cards. I couldn’t get a dime out of the bank, and I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t pay for a newspaper with my cards now. And they won’t tell me what’s going on, nor why they did it. I’m thinking that it’s that fucking McCullough person doing this. You said that his sister-in-law had the ear of the president, didn’t you?”

  “Did they tell you how long it would be before they let you have access to them?” He said he’d been trying to figure that out. “I don’t understand. Don’t they have to give you fair warning or something, so you can get some ready cash out while they figure it out?”

  “Apparently not. I think that’s the plan when they do this. To catch you while you’re down. I swear to Christ, this is getting more and more fucked up every day. I need to get this shit finished so that I can skip town.” Dusty reminded him that he’d told him to do that a few days ago. “Well, aren’t you just the smartest man in the room? I told you, this is seventy million dollars. I can’t just walk away from it. I have things I want to do. And you’ll love this, but I don’t have any money anywhere. I just called my dealer that I have my overseas accounts with, and they said that my accounts have been empty since the day that Tom left. He fucking took it from me, I just know it.”

  “You mean he stole the money that you stole from him?” Harley glared at Dusty. “Well, you have to admit that it is sort of funny. I mean, he wasn’t nearly as stupid as you thought he was. The man has balls, or had them I suppose. He really reamed you over. Have you had any luck finding the kids? I’m sure that they might know a thing or two about what Daddy and Mommy were up to when this shit happened. Not to mention, right now, it might be our only way of making any kind of money out of this deal.”

  “No. I’m thinking that someone has them under lock and key so that I can’t find them. I’m telling you right now, Dusty, that when this shit is done, I’m going to find Tom’s grave and piss on him. Even from the grave, the man is fucking me over.” He looked at his notes he’d been taking since he’d come in that morning. “Also, McCullough has closed up his offices. The only information that I have on that is through his service. I can’t even call his home. There is no listing for it. And when I tried to leave a message with him to call me back, the person on the phone said that Mr. McCullough won’t be taking any calls that aren’t deemed emergencies. Apparently, she thinks me wanting to talk to him isn’t considered an emergency. Fucking bitch.”

  “He’s working on his house now, him and a large crew. I just drove by there. He’s got a couple of different crews crawling all over the place. I think he’s even putting in some extra security around the homestead as well. Like he doesn’t trust anyone.” They both laughed. “Anyway, I was going to go by there anyway, but if you want, I can go there and muss things up for him a little. You know, piss him off. Just let me know.”

  “You do that. Go and set fire to a little bit of it. I would imagine that there are all kinds of flammable things in that place. Might even have a marshmallow or two while it burns out of control.” Harley liked that a lot, but he also knew that Dusty wouldn’t do it. He hated fire and anything to do with it. If someone had a fireplace running in their home, he’d not go there. He had a real phobia. But they did like to pretend that he’d do it. “Also, there are a couple of places downtown that I think his family might be owning. Might do us some good to get them all riled up too. I don’t know why, but I hate how calm they are about everything, and so goody-two-shoes about what they do to help out the stinking poor and underprivileged. I want them to fucking help me. Do you think they will? Hell no, not even enough to call me back.”

  “I can do that, no problem. But as for calling you back, you’re on your own with that one. I’d say avoid them, but that’s just me.” Dusty didn’t leave. But it mattered little to Harley. They weren’t best friends, but they were friendly. And Dusty had been working with him since they’d been boys together in the orphanage. “I have some money, Harley. If you need cash, I can get it for you. They don’t know who I am, so that’ll work in our favor for the time being.”

  “I would like that, thanks.” Dusty told him that he’d get it for him when he left. “Thanks. I need a few things around here too. You know that when that cook left here, he must have taken everything with him. The cupboards are bare. He even took some of my best wines with him. When I find that sucker, I’m going to take it out of his hide for what he did to me. That just ain’t right.”

  “No problem.” Dusty stood up then, and Harley leaned back in his chair. “You’re not going to leave, are you? You’re going to get yourself caught up in this and end up in jail, Harley.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I have that money. Someone somewhere has to know where it is. And when I get it, I’ll be gone so fast that I won’t even leave a trail to find me.” Or at least he hoped so. “Thanks for the loan, Dusty. I appreciate it.”

  After Dusty left him, Harley started looking over his plans. He’d been revising them for the last several days because every time something got moved in his way or someone would come up with something more, he’d have to make adjustments. It had been simple at first, before Tom had ended up dead, but nothing was so simple any more.

  The shares were something that he’d been looking into to buy on his own. But really, he didn’t have the cash nor the knowhow to buy them. So, when Tom had told him, several days later, that he’d bought the shares, he’d asked him how much he’d had to spend.

  “I have a broker. And while I really didn’t have the ready cash money, it was easy to get a loan on my car and then use the other shares that I had for something else.” He asked him why he’d do such a thing. “My broker. I’m telling you, Harley, the man is a wizard at making money. How do you think I got the capital to buy this place? He turned me into a millionaire overnight. And I bought and sold when he told me. Now, as it stands at this moment, I’m about double what I paid for the stock. And it’s only been a few weeks.”

  So, in an effort to see just how good this broker was, Harley began to watch the stock, and it did indeed go up. Once, right before Tom sold it all, it dipped down a little, but not that much. And his ten-thousand-dollar investment had turned into millions. And that was when Harley had hatched a plan to take it from Tom and to rid himself of the dead weight that his partner was. Harley wanted to be rich, of course, he just didn’t want to have to figure out how to do it when the man in the same building as him had more than enough for him.

  The plan to kill Tom off had come to him one night while he’d been watching the news. Some kid had killed off his grandda for some coins that he had and the kid wanted. He’d been such a fuck up since the beginning of the whole thing, and had been caught within hours.

  But Harley had made notes on other murders that he’d found on the Internet. The things that had tripped others up, and who had told on them. He even looked around for ways to murder someone to figure things out, and ways that had worked the best. He hadn’t gone that far…he didn’t need
to when Tom bought the used boat and he’d had an idea.

  Every one of the murders, however, said that it was the change in their lifestyle that had eventually given them away. That spending money that was coming, paying people when the deed was done, was the surest way to get caught. So, he’d taken care of that beforehand. Then Tom and his wife had bought them a boat. Something that seemed to be the best way to get rid of a nosy partner had been the perfect thing for him.

  He’d been a model of a broke man before he’d had Tom killed, and since then too. That’s what made the fact that Tom had taken the money out of his accounts so aggravating. Harley really was broke, and now his accounts here were closed to him as well.

  Things were going to have to break soon or he’d be in prison. Not for the murders that he’d committed, but because heads were going to roll if he didn’t have something go his way soon. Every move forward he thought he was making, it was actually two steps back. It seemed that every time he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, someone would snuff the fucker out and he’d be in the dark again. That fucking McCullough prick was the beginning to the end of this shit, and he had to make him pay. He wasn’t sure how yet, but he would.

  When Dusty returned an hour later, Harley knew he was upset. He just sat down in the chair and didn’t speak for several minutes. The way he was looking, sort of murderous, Harley thought that the person who would have messed with this man was going to be dead very shortly. When he spoke to him, Harley could hear the controlled anger in his voice.

  “Did you tell anyone that we were working on this?” He asked him why he thought that. “Because my accounts have been seized as well. Not only that, but my car has been impounded, as well as my locker that I have my things stored in. My guns, Harley. All my guns and ammo have been taken by the fucking government. I don’t even vote, so how the fuck else would they have found me?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. I haven’t said a single word to anyone about anything between us.” Dusty got up to pace, and that was when Harley noticed the gun in his pocket. “You come here to kill me, Dusty? I hope you’re only carrying so that you can protect yourself. We’ve been through a great deal together, and I would surely hate to have to kill you over something I had nothing to do with.”

  “I don’t have a pot to piss in right now, Harley, so don’t go whining to me about how we’ve been so tight. You’d turn me over to the Feds in a heartbeat if it would get you out of going to prison. We both know that. I’d do the same to you. But this is bad. Really bad.” He asked him how not having his cash was going to hurt him so badly. “The guns, you moron. They’ll be able to solve a great many cases with just running a few tests on them. And there are notes where bodies are hidden. And before you tell me how stupid that was, you should know that you’re mentioned in there as well.”

  “Why the fuck would you do that?” He told him some cock and bull story about where to bury the bodies. “You had to mention my name when you did that? Mother fuck, Dusty, this is going to get us both locked up for a long time. All I wanted was the money. Money that is as far out of my reach as it’s ever been.”

  “I told you, several times over the last week, to leave with me. To get the fuck out of here before the men you called idiots put two and two together and ended up with us both at the end of a fucking rope. But you just had to have the money.” Dusty laughed, and it was bitter and harsh. “Fat fucking lot of good it’s going to do us when we’re both going to be fried in the chair.”

  He didn’t think this was the time to point out that they didn’t use the chair in this state anymore, but lethal injection. Hangings were not used by that many states either. But he left it alone. Dusty was upset enough. As the people used to say about him and Dusty when they’d been kids, don’t fucking poke the bear. And poking Dusty right now would be worse than any bear he’d ever seen.

  Harley thought about how he could get the fuck out of town. There wasn’t any money, no credit cards, and even his stash that he usually had in reserve was gone. The only way he could get out was to hitchhike or to go into hiding. He wasn’t stupid enough to think this would die down anytime soon, so he had to think of someplace he could go for a long period of time. Other than prison.

  “We need a plan.” Dusty said no shit. “Well, while you’re ruining my carpet, I’m thinking ahead. We need cash. Enough to set us up someplace that doesn’t have extradition. Where?”

  “Right off the top of my head I can think of a few. Afghanistan for one. Also Bosnia and Burma.” He asked if there was someplace they could go that wouldn’t get them killed. “I don’t know, dumbass, I don’t usually look up places where I can run and hide because it’s preferable to prison. I’m more into looking at places to lay my hat, have a good time, to get laid in. Not where I can go so that I don’t get my ass shipped home because I’ve lost all my money.”

  “You don’t need to be so fucking nasty. I’m just trying to figure this out.” Dusty said he was sorry, but he was stressed out. “I’m working on getting us taken care of, but we need a plan. One that will get us a little cash to skip town, as well as set us up for a little while. At least until we start making some cash again.”

  “Kidnapping comes to mind. There is money in that, and you said that the McCulloughs have it.” They did, a great deal of it, as a matter of fact. “And there are any number of them to take, too. Why, just the other day I saw that they have babies. We both know that people will do just about anything to get their babies back.”

  “Yes, I like that idea. That way we can stick it to him twice. Does Larson, my worst nightmare, have any?” Dusty said he didn’t know, but could find out. “Never mind. You said that they have babies. Find one of them for me and we’ll work from there. And while you’re looking into that, I’ll see about finding a place to hide it away. This might work. And if it doesn’t, we go to prison anyway, right?”

  “Yeah, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not go to prison. I’ve done that before, and I have no desire to go back.” Harley hadn’t been caught so far at anything really seriously bad, thankfully, and didn’t want to go either. “I’ll do some looking around and see what I can find out about which ones have kids. That way we can do this right.”

  Harley wondered what sort of lenience he could get if he turned Dusty in for the kidnapping job, and then decided that would be the fall back plan. He didn’t want to turn his friend in, but he’d do it in a heartbeat if it came to that. He wasn’t going to prison, not if he could help it.

  Chapter 6

  Virginia loved her new office. And just this morning her things had arrived from her place that she’d shared with her mom. The company that had packed things up had done a great job, and so far nothing had been broken yet. Of course, when you had all the money in the world, she supposed you could hire the best.

  She was putting some of her books on the shelf when Lauren and Reese came in. This wasn’t good.

  “Don’t get all tensed up. We’ve only come to tell you what is going on.” She told Lauren that made her tenser. “Yeah, well, I’d be that way too if I had to unpack all this stuff. But then I don’t like to write, so it could be that. What the hell kind of money does one make off of putting a few words on paper?”

  “Very good money, if you want to know the truth. Enough that I could pay cash for my home, put some money in the bank, and have some fun too.” Lauren said that was impressive. “Thank you. I think so as well, since we had nothing before that.”

  She liked Lauren. She was scary organized and seemed to know more laws and how to break them than she’d bet most criminals did. But she was nice too, when she wanted to be. So far she’d not seen her that way except when she was holding one of her kids. Then she was as mushy as Virginia was about it.

  “About why we’re here. You should have a seat. I don’t have time to go cleaning a mess up if you decide to get all faint on me. There is some trouble that you need to be made aware of.” She sat down whe
n Jon and Mac joined them. “They’re here to help me soften the blow. And so you know, nothing will happen to Sam.”

  “Sam? What do you think might happen to him? Come on, tell me.” She did. Virginia started to stand, but when she wobbled a bit, she sat again. “And how are you going to prevent this from happening? Or, as you said, him not getting hurt? Because he’s not going anywhere unless I’m one hundred percent sure he’s not going to be hurt at all.”

  “I thought you’d tell me no, right off the bat. Sort of took the wind out of my sails.” Virginia wasn’t sure what to say to her so said nothing. “Anyway, as you know, the office of Harley is bugged, and by doing so, we got a little bit of a heads up on what they’re planning to do. Not to kill Sam…at least he’s not mentioned it as yet, but I’m not going to rule it out. They’re thinking of taking one of our kids, but especially one of Larson’s, for ransom. Wells and his partner have no cash, and they think—and this is really stupid on their part—that they can get enough to go to another country and we’ll be fine with that.”

  “No, I’m not fine with any of this.” Lauren said she wasn’t either. When Virginia looked at the other women, she wondered why they were there. “You others, you’re thinking something might go wrong. And you don’t want to do this. Or, you think that this plan of hers is great. Either because you’re afraid of her or she’s going to bully you into her way of thinking. Which is it?”

  Mac spoke first. “I think this is the best plan we can do and not have any of the children harmed. However, there are risks involved, as in anything that we might do. But Lauren is good, and that is enough for me to go along with this.” She looked at Reese.