Chapter 12

B rittany wandered around her place aimlessly, finding herself stopping beside the mama dog's new bed constantly. Brittany had pulled blankets out of storage and ended up creating way more than the poor dog needed, but something was absolutely lovely about having her here. Brittany had been so reticent at first, and she didn't know why. Maybe it was because she now knew that she would likely lose the mama dog and her puppies.

She followed the mama dog outside and sat down beside the dog and rubbed her ears. Seeing her flinch made Brittany fear the dog had likely been abused, yet here she was, still valiant and strong.

"Something can be said about those of us who come through the worst that life has to offer," she whispered to the dog, as she stroked her. "Your life has taken a really good turn now, so you'll be fine."

She wouldn't be at all surprised if Brad had picked this one up from somewhere and had already been working with her. The fact that nobody else knew about all that Brad did for these animals also didn't mean it wasn't one of the dogs that he had living with him. Brittany didn't know what dogs he had at any given time, but he was always working to help someone, even though his own situation was beyond help.

She wondered about going through life knowing you could die any day, only to stop and laugh because that was the truth for everyone. The reality was that any person could go at any time. They could simply just not wake up one morning, yet everybody expected to live long and healthy lives. However, in Brad's case, he never had that opportunity, and that must have been devastating for him. Somehow he had come to a certain level of peace and had found a way to live with it. She had to admire that about him too.

Everybody had known he had major health issues, but whenever he did something they thought was rude or strange—which for the kids was as simple as picking up garbage on the beach—they all said Brad had a mental health issue. She'd never seen anything like that about him, so hadn't considered such a thing.

She also thought that Baron would not take kindly to people making those kinds of conjectures about Brad either. Yet Baron would empathize when people did it though, because he appeared to be very much on the understanding side. But she also knew he was struggling with the loss of Brad, plus Baron appeared to be under some strain or stress involving his mother. Brittany remembered the rumors that Baron had been a very late baby for her.

She couldn't imagine going through a pregnancy well into her late forties. That would have been rough on Baron's mother, and his father as well, although Brittany remembered him as being a big, jovial man, full of laughter and life. He seemed a complete opposite to his wife, who had more of a dour personality and rarely smiled. However, the few times Brittany had seen her out with Brad, the two of them always appeared to be comfortable and happy together, and, for that, Brittany was grateful.

Everybody should have somebody in their world, and Brad appeared to be that for his mother, and her for him. Brittany didn't want to think about what that meant in terms of Baron's feelings, but Brittany could only worry about so many people at any given time. She reached down and stroked Lucky's face. This mama dog had been lucky to have survived, so it was a good name for her. Lucky stretched out willingly and turned up her belly. Brittany spent a few minutes just rubbing her soft fur and smiling at her.

"You'll be fine," she kept reassuring her. "You and your puppies will be just fine." She sighed, enjoying the dogs and the nice weather outside today.

When a man broke through her happy reverie, she was shocked as hell.

"Shit, get over the dog already, will you?"

She stiffened to stare at the stranger who had just hopped over the fence in front of her. She looked at her fence and then back at him. "A fence is there for a reason."

"Yeah, I know." He sauntered toward her, and, as he got closer, she realized who it was. The angry man threatening to kill Kingston. The angry armed man who had followed her when she ran. The color fled from her face as she stared at him in shock. "What the hell do you want?"

"Ah, so you do remember me, don't you? A part of me says yay, and another part of me says something else, but the bottom line is that it sucks to be you," he stated, with a smirk. "We really can't have any more people running around, remembering anything."

She shook her head slowly. "I don't even know what you're talking about or why you're here. I don't get it." She bent a hand down to Lucky, who even now had turned back over and was cringing.

He stared at the dog and shrugged. "It's just another mutt, so what do you care?"

"She's already been through a lot," Brittany snapped, "and, if you had any heart, you would care too."

"I don't give a shit about a dog," he stated coldly, "and I don't give a shit about you. I don't give a shit about this town or anything in it." He took a moment, looking around the space. "I'm here for something completely different."

"And what is that?" she asked, completely bewildered. "I have no idea what you could possibly want from me."

"Well, maybe nothing if you don't have what I want," he replied, "and that would make me very angry because I'm damn tired of searching all over the place and not finding it."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm looking for a guy, one of the guys who lived in a house in the hurricane's path. The house is set pretty far back on his property, and he most definitely doesn't appreciate any visitors."

She winced. "Yeah, the spooky Gorman house."

He nodded. "Bingo.… You catch up fast. That would be a good name for it, and the old guy there was supposed to leave me something."

She frowned. "Well, go talk to him then," she cried out. "What are you doing here in my house?"

He glared at her. "Where is he? I need to know where he is."

"The old man? As far as I know he had surgery or something. I don't know any more than that. Maybe he died in the hurricane."

His glare deepened. "Don't give me that attitude. Which is it? He had surgery or he died?"

"How am I supposed to know?" She stared at him, wondering how she had gotten wrapped up in this. "I haven't seen him, and the townsfolk have always avoided that house like the plague."

"And that's probably smart. Gorman did his time, but he wasn't exactly one of the good guys," he shared, with a knowing smile.

She stared at him, her heart sinking. "Maybe he wasn't one of the good guys," she replied, "but, if he is dead, nobody can help you then. Presumably you've already gone to his house."

"I absolutely have," he declared, with a nod, "and it's a pretty depressing place. And now with the hurricane damage, it's pretty well destroyed too."

She nodded. "A lot of houses are like that around here."

He looked at her. "Did you lose a house?"

"My grandmother did. She had a house on that same block."

"I wondered why you kept coming back. Well, it's not exactly a town anybody wants to stay in, so I don't know why anybody would be upset over losing any home here. I suggest you take the money you're offered and run."

"I don't think it's that simple," she muttered, staring at him.

"It should be. It should be pretty-damn simple. I don't know why anybody would make it difficult," he said, glaring at her.

She let out her breath. "Look. I don't know what you want here."

"No, I'm sure you don't," he agreed, "but that's okay. It really is okay, and I don't have any ax to grind with you, except …"

It was the except that made her heart sink.

"Except that you've seen me."

"So what? What difference does it make if I've seen you?" she asked, staring at him. "I mean, I don't know your name. And it's not as if you're some celebrity. People won't come around here, wanting to take pictures of you or something."

He burst out laughing at that. "Yet I am a celebrity—but not in a way that you would care about."

She shook her head at the cryptic comment. "I don't know what you want from me, but this is my home, and you have no right to be here, so please leave."

"Oh so polite," he noted in a mocking tone, as he stepped closer. She stiffened and he nodded. "I really don't think you understand just what your situation is right now."

"No, I don't understand because I don't have anything to do with you. I don't know you, and I don't want to know you."

"Ah, now I'm heartbroken," he quipped, putting a hand against his heart, as he pulled out a gun.

"Oh no," she muttered, as she scrambled to her feet. Lucky scrambled to her feet too, obviously not enjoying the encounter with the stranger.

"And look at that," he said. "You've got the dog all upset too."

She spared a glance at Lucky, who was staring at the stranger, her lip curled. "She's upset because you're acting this way, and you're getting awfully close to her puppies."

He stopped, then stared down at them. "Shit, she survived the hurricane and had puppies? Aren't you just the luckiest?"

"Nothing wrong with her having puppies," Brittany declared, eyeing him. "It's just nature."

"Sure, but you know how it is around here. She could be fodder for the gators," he shared, with a snort. "You should have just let them have her." Brittany gasped at him in shock, and he snorted. "You're just one of those animal-loving criminal-justice idiots," he declared, with a wave of his hand. "You don't have a clue how life works."

"Maybe not," she stated, "but I was doing pretty well until you came along." For whatever reason, that made him laugh, and he howled out loud with enjoyment. She stared at him, feeling weary. "It's not that funny."

Instantly his laughter stopped, and he looked at her and nodded slowly. "You're right. It isn't that funny. It's not funny at all." He pointed the gun straight at her.

She stared at him and shook her head. "Damn, not this again."

He frowned at her. "That's a pretty mellow attitude."

"No," she said, as she stared at the gun with loathing. "I've just come to really hate those things."

"Maybe, and maybe that's a good thing," he said. "But better to take something you're scared of and turn it into something you can utilize. The minute you're afraid of something," he noted in a lecturing tone, "it can be used against you."

She blinked at that. "Good to know."

"Not that you'll need to know it," he added, with that same smirk, "because no way I can let you live."

She stared at him. "Seriously? I don't even know who you are, and, if you hadn't showed up here, you would have been free to keep going and doing your own thing."

"Maybe, but the minute I get sloppy and somebody like you comes along and tells the cops about it, then my life becomes very difficult."

"You mentioned how you came to get something from your friend. So go back to the Gorman house and get it," she cried out. "It's got nothing to do with me."

He just stared at her, then looked at the dog at her side and back at her. "You sound so sincere and believable, but sorry, no deal."

Just as he went to raise his weapon again, a huge roar surprised them. As the gunman spun to look at what was coming, she cried out, watching Kingston soar over the top of her fence and come down atop her intruder.

Baron bolted through the back door, just in time to see the gunman trying to shoot Kingston, who was trying to get at him. He called out to Kingston once, twice, then used an order common in the military to stand down.

The dog absolutely hated it but pulled back ever-so-slightly, glared at Baron for a second, then turned his attention to the man on the ground. Even now the intruder was trying to swing the gun forward, but Brittany kicked him in the ribs. He roared, then spun around with just enough energy to attack her, which set Kingston off yet again.

Baron now joined the fracas and pinned down the gunman, telling Brittany to go get him some zap straps or something to tie him up. Brittany bolted into the house, but Kingston wasn't leaving. He stayed right beside the intruder, growling at the man, just in case he dared to move.

"It's okay, buddy. It's okay," Baron said. "He won't try anything now. We've got him."

"Like fucking hell, you do," the gunman roared. "Ain't no way I'm letting that dog live. The minute I get up, I'm taking him out."

"You've got to get up first," Baron snapped, "and I'm not too worried about your doing that while Kingston's here."

Brittany returned almost immediately, with household zap straps. He nodded and zapped a couple together and pinned the man's arms in place, then worked on his legs. "Just in case you know a couple tricks to get out of these," he shared, "I'm doubling them up."

The angry gunman swore at him. "Yeah, I know how to get out of them."

"Don't bother," Baron snarled, while Kingston kept growling. "We won't make this easy on you."

"I don't give a shit if you make it easy or not," the intruder bellowed, his tone lethal and angry, "but I can guarantee I'm coming back after you."

Brittany finally asked Baron, "How did you know to come?"

Baron gave a nod to Kingston. "The War Dog sniffed out our prisoner coming here. You must have stopped by my truck, then come here. Kingston followed your scent."

"I'm gonna kill that dog," the prisoner yelled.

"I wonder about that," Baron noted, "since it seems to me that your buddy is the one you should be pissed at,… not me."

"And your fucking brother," he snapped.

At that, Baron froze. "Yeah. What did you do to my brother, asshole?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He sneered. "You'll have to figure it out on your own. I ain't fucking telling you shit."

"Then I won't tell you what we found either." The man stilled, and Baron knew he had him. "Yeah, you were looking for something, weren't you? Since Gorman and Brad seemed to be friendly, you searched my brother's house. Yet all Gorman and Brad had in common was a War Dog. So you kept going over to Gorman's place, but you never found anything, did you?"

"Old man Gorman is a fucking asshole. He was supposed to share all the goods we stole together back in the day. We agreed we would give it ten years before we cashed in. That son of a bitch had ten years, and he was supposed to keep it safe. Everybody in the gang knew our plans, and ten years went by. Then, all of a sudden, old man Gorman's supposedly got some mental illness. That old shit doesn't know where the stash is. People have come to his house and searched it, time and time again. Then he goes in for surgery, and I started wondering.… How is he paying for the damn surgery? He had the loot. What if he's using our money for that?"

"He was a war vet, as you well know. He had good military insurance that covered his VA hospital stays."

"Well, he shouldn't have nothing because nothing was honorable about him. He was nothing but a loser and a cheat, that son of a bitch. Where do you think we got the goods from?"

"You tell me."

"Gorman stole them. He got the information on one of those fancy foreign relations trips he ran with the military. Then one night, where supposedly all these people with big money were showing up, he let us all in, and we ended up stripping the place clean. We got tons of money and some gem collection too that was being stored at the time," he shared, with a sneer.

"So, you cleaned up lots of cash and jewelry?"

"Yeah, we did. Next thing I know, everything is on hold, just waiting for time to pass, for the investigation to cool, for the cops to lose interest. All these years, I've been just tinkering around, doing small-time jobs, waiting for the designated time to pass. Meanwhile, the gang is talking about it, what we'll do with our share, and we all know how much money is involved. It's worth more and more, and then, all of a sudden, Gorman starts losing his mind."

"Maybe he did lose it. Old age is like that, you know," Baron stated, as he stared down at his prisoner.

"Maybe, or maybe he stole it to pay for all this damn surgery. It was supposed to be our money."

"Well, he sure didn't put it into his house. He didn't dare, did he?"

"If he did any maintenance on his house, we would all know he'd been tapping into the money."

"But, as a war vet, he was eligible for medical."

"Maybe, but nobody else gets fucking medical in this world, so why the hell should Gorman? All he did was lie and cheat and steal—from the military."

"Maybe, but, if nobody knew that and if nobody was prepared to go to bat and to accuse him of something like that, then his medical would continue."

"Maybe," he sneered, "but you guys don't know shit when it comes to what goes on right under your nose."

"Oh, you might be surprised. Some of us do."

"Oh yeah,… here we go. You think you're better than everybody else? You're not any better than any of the rest of us."

"Then what happened to all the cash and the jewelry you stole?"

"I don't know. That's what I was looking for," he said, frustration in his tone. "When the hurricane took the house out, I thought for sure it would be my chance to come and get the stash."

"What about your partner?"

"That double-crossing snake was here ahead of me. Matter of fact, he was here way ahead of me, and I didn't know it. After I got here, I found out he'd already been looking for days, but he hadn't told me that."

"Oh, he was just keeping that information for himself?" Brittany asked, pouring fuel on the fire from the sidelines.

"I'm not sure he's anything worth worrying about now," the prisoner muttered.

Baron held out a hand to her, and she took it, holding onto him tightly. "Yeah?" she replied. "Well, we've met him, and he seems to be pretty determined and persistent."

The gunman growled. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about. He's gone. What I'm talking about is millions in cash and in gold and gemstones over there."

Baron whistled at that. "Are you sure about the millions?"

"Hell, yes, I'm sure. I saw it."

"Wow, that's interesting," Baron said. "I remember hearing how a bunch of jewelry had been found during one of the military raids. They intercepted a huge cache of gold that was being moved on one of the missions, and it went missing."

"Yeah, it sure did. And Gorman set it up for us," the gunman confirmed. "Now about Gorman,… what kind of surgery is he having?"

Baron shrugged. "He has shrapnel in his back, as far as I know."

"Oh, that figures. It would be shrapnel in his back. Serves him right, and that back-stabbing moron deserves all the pain he got. The guy is a loser, a flat-out loser."

"I'm not sure you have to worry about Gorman anymore either," Baron added.

"Why?"

"Because he passed away this morning."

At that, the gunman swore, loud and strong. "No way."

"Yeah, he did. The docs could only get part of the shrapnel, and he started bleeding heavily. He didn't make it through the night. They tried, but they could not save him."

"Hell." The gunman roared for a full minute, raging on, and then, tired and glum, he stared out into the distance, looking defeated. "That gold and the cash has to be somewhere."

"Something else I heard was how somebody had reported on the sly about where and how the missing gold and jewels were found," Baron shared, "and it was taken back into military custody about,… let me think,… maybe five years later."

"No way!" the gunman shouted, twisting to try and look up at him. "What the fuck are you saying? How the hell—"

"Think about it."

"You are saying he…" The intruder frowned.

At that, Baron nodded. "Yes."

"He was a goddamn snitch? But how the hell would you know about it?"

"It's just the work I'm in, you know? I hear rumors."

"Yeah? Rumors don't mean shit."

"I think Gorman probably turned it in, saying he came across some people trying to sell the gold, trying to launder the cash. That's the story I heard."

The guy just stared at him. "Gorman wouldn't do that."

"He might have, if he had second thoughts."

"No, no, he wouldn't.… He wouldn't dare.… It was our money, and he knew it. Damn it. He was the one who stole it in the first place."

"If he stole it," Brittany suggested, as she stood up and walked closer, "then maybe Gorman decided it was up to him to return it to the rightful owners."

"Who is the rightful owner in a war?" the intruder asked, with a laugh. "That's why it was so fucking perfect."

"Ah, right,… untraceable gold and all that cash."

"It had been moved into Gorman's house for safekeeping, and all these supposed guards were around, but our gang was part of the guards, so we were some of the few people able to move it out. It was perfect, and nobody even knew. Hell, I didn't connect all the dots until we'd moved it here. It was the perfect place…"

"You had it, but that didn't mean you got to keep it," Brittany pointed out. "So what about your partner? The one who beat you here."

He just shrugged.

"What? Did you pop him too?" she asked.

He glared at her and snapped, "I wasn't sharing any more than I had to."

"Right, so once again, greed is the whole reason your partnership blew up."

"Not greed," he clarified. "There were four of us, and we were called the Galloway gang. One obviously has just passed away," he noted, glaring at Baron, "while two of us were here and were doing just fine. At least we would have been, if we could have found the damn stash. I still don't know where Gorman could have kept it. All I know is, it's not at his house any longer so maybe the military did get it."

"Depending on the physical size of the stash, safe deposit boxes make some sense, if you think about it."

"Yeah, but Gorman didn't have one. We checked."

"You checked every name that he had, that he could have possibly used?" Baron asked.

The gunman eyed him and nodded. "We had one storage locker in all our names," he shared, "so it shouldn't have been an issue. The plan was to move the stash from Gorman's house to the locker, before he retired from the military. We just had to get the right people on the security detail."

"Yet I'm telling you that somebody turned in a parcel of gold at some point, and it's been a bit ago."

"When you say a bit ago, how long exactly?"

Baron shrugged. "As I told you earlier, about five years after it was stolen. I'm not exactly privy to the inside story, but I could probably find out."

Brittany frowned, listening intently, as she sat on the other side of Kingston, keeping him calm.

"If Gorman turned it in," the gunman replied, now swearing, "that would be a shitty move for the rest of us."

"It might be shitty for you," Baron noted, looking at him, "but maybe the authorities were looking at in a whole different light."

"What are you talking about?"

"Because maybe the fourth man in your group," Baron suggested calmly, "maybe he turned on you."

"I haven't heard from him. I sent him a message that we were coming to look for our stash, that the place had gone down in a hurricane, and that old man Gorman was missing."

"Maybe the fourth man came to make his claim. Maybe he was already here ahead of you and your partner," Brittany suggested.

The gunman just glared at her. Baron looked over at her and shook his head slightly. Frowning, she snapped her lips shut.

"What the hell is it that I don't know," the gunman asked, slowly catching on.

" One of the things that you don't know is that the fourth man in your group was a plant," Baron shared. "Did you ever see him?"

"No, I never saw him. Everything was done in secret."

"Right, so you see? That's part of the problem. He was a plant, and you don't know who it was. So he couldn't let everybody know what really happened. Plus old man Gorman managed to hang on to his medical and his pension because he agreed to testify, if you were ever found. Apparently you guys weren't too interested in showing up."

"We agreed to have no contact for ten years."

"Exactly, and now ten years have gone by. Gorman's not here with us any longer," Baron pointed out, "and it looks like you and the buddy you already killed were the only ones left to the Galloway gang—plus the other guy, the plant."

"What do you mean, he was a plant?"

"He knew all about the heist, and he reported it to the authorities beforehand," Baron replied.

"How the hell would you know that?" Instantly angry all over again, the gunman twisted in front of him.

Baron glanced over at Brittany, who was also staring at him with growing wonder. Baron shrugged. "Because I'm that guy."