Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Marlin looked at the two people that he’d summoned to his office. Actually, they weren’t the ones that he wanted, but close enough considering that his attorney was in jail because she’d been armed in a courtroom and his man, his brother-in-law, was dead. All thanks to their stupidity in getting caught with their drawers down, as his grannie had been so fond of saying about him. Tisking, hoping that one of these two would start talking so that he could kill them, his cell phone rang beside him.

It startled him enough that he jumped a little. He’d been so focused on the two men, Lowel and Louis, that he’d forgotten he was waiting on a call. Daring either of them to make a sound, he picked up his phone and said his last name.

“So that’s what we should call you is it? Marlin Couch? I think I might have known a Marlin before but no Couches. Why are you harassing me all the time? I don’t have time for your bullshit.” Hating to be at a loss when he was called, he asked the man who he was. “Brad Kirk. You’ve sent enough of your people around that you should know my name by heart. I’ve not even met you, but I can bet that you’re a fat fuck who orders people around like he’s god or something. What the hell is it you want? I’ve only just met my mate, and you’re keeping me from wooing her the way that I want.”

“How did you get this number?” He looked at his own cell and realized that Kirk had called him on his private line. “I don’t hand this number out because I don’t care to speak to just anyone with a burr up their asses about something that I’m doing. What do you want? You’ll tell me now, then lose this number. As you might well know, I’m not a man to be trifled with.”

“You’re men, or I should say your henchmen failed at their attempt to get me put in jail. Also, and I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not but your pretty attorney isn’t going to be able to represent you guys anymore. She’s not only been disbarred, but she’s also going to be spending a great deal of time—the next thirty or so years at least for carrying a gun into a courtroom without a permit. I’m to understand for also threatening a sitting judge as she was being dragged away. She needs to learn how to keep her voice down when she’s calling a judge disparaging names. He has good hearing and heard her calling him a worthless piece of dog shit. Dawson was a good deal more colorful than that, but you get the point. So you tell me whatever it is you want then we’ll both go about our lives trying to not interact with each other. What do you say?”

“You have something that I want.” Kirk told him that was the way it usually worked out. “All right. I want you to give me some money. A great deal of it, as a matter of fact. Then I’ll leave you alone for the moment at least. You have it, and I want it. It’ll be easier on you if you simply pay up and shut up.”

“That’s it? You just want a great deal of money, and you’ll what? Poof and be gone? Now, that isn’t the way it usually works out. How would you feel if I said no, I’m not giving you money? What would you have to say about that? Perhaps, you should explain to me why it is that you think that I owe you money? I don’t think we’ve ever met, so me owing you is going to go out the window of things that are going to happen.” He said that he didn’t much care for it and would show him his disdain for it if he were to send someone to him to bring him to his offices. “That’s not going to happen either. Option two? If you have one.”

“It would be a real shame if something happened to your new family. That young man especially.” What Marlin expected was the man to start begging for him to leave his family alone. He hadn’t expected to be laughed at. “You don’t think that I can do that? Take away half of your new family? Trust me when I tell you, I have ways.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt about that. You more than likely have a lot of ‘ways,’ as you put it. But what you don’t understand and might as well get used to it, I have backup in my corner, like the man in front of you. I believe his name is Lowel. Would you like to see what I can do to your little operation without even being in the room with you?” He smiled, knowing that the man was full of shit. “All right. Let me know how full of shit you think that I am with this.”

Lowel was suddenly headless. If not for him seeing it himself, Marlin would never have believed that it happened. Screaming, trying to get away from the blood, picking random things up off his desk, he tossed not just his cigar box of his favorite cigars but his cell phone and a few other items as well. He thought that it bothered him more that Lowel’s body, a fat ugly one at that, was still standing, spraying blood not just all over him but the entire office, too. Screaming, his fear of getting bloodied making him leap back, tumbling over his now failing chair made him knock his head on the safe behind him. Christ, he hated blood. Especially if it was this close to him. If it got on him, like it was now, he freaked the fuck out. Literally freaked out.

Since he had no cell phone on him any longer, he ordered Louis to pick up his phone. When the man looked at him, like he didn’t have a first clue on how to even blink, Marlin decided that there wasn’t enough decontaminator in the world to make him use his phone ever again. Moving around the mess, difficult to do with blood still pooling under Lowel, Marlin made his way to the front of his secretary’s desk.

“Call the police. He killed a man.” Dorothy picked up the phone and asked him who had killed who. “That man. Kirk. He killed Lowel, trying to prove some kind of point. Which is…why are you staring at me like that? I said to call the police.”

Dorothy asked him the name of the dead man. After telling her, she asked where the killer had come from. The first thing that popped out of his mouth was that he’d been on the phone with him. She put the handle of the phone back in the cradle and stared at him. It wasn’t a look that he was particularly happy with, but he asked her what she was doing.

“And tell them what, sir? A man who isn’t in your office killed a man over the phone? I never let him in, so I couldn’t tell them who the man was nor if he had…how did he kill Lowel? Gun? I haven’t any idea. Was he there before I got in? I’ll need details if I’m going to make the call. I’m not getting into the middle of things without lots of details that cover my own ass. What do you mean he killed Lowel over the phone? Perhaps we should start there. I might be able to call someone if I have a lot of details. You will, too, if you know what the police are going to say when you tell them that story.”

“He just lost his head.” Giggling a little, not liking that his mind was suddenly thinking hilarity was in everything that he said, Marlin pressed his hands tightly over his mouth and didn’t speak. Starting for his office, he turned on his heel to leave the building. He’d never be able to work in that room again. Not after the massacre, that’s what he’d thought it would look like even if he had all the walls and carpet changed out.

Once he was on the streets, he heard phones going off all around him. He didn’t like the fact that they were loitering in front of his place of business, answering calls, but he was too busy to mess with them today as he needed to inspect his clothing for any more blood. As it was, one of his— One of the people, a woman that had her cell to her cheek asked him if he was Marlin Couch.

“Yes. Who wants to know?” She handed him her phone and he wasn’t sure how to hold it. It had so much crap and glittery stuff all over it that he knew that it had to weigh about three to four times more than it would have had she not decorated the damned thing. “Who is this?”

“It’s Brad again. It seems that your other phone got a little messy from my proving to you that I can get to you anytime I wish. And I will if you fuck with me any more than you have so far. By the way. Did you know that blood from a vampire will disappear with any contact with the sun? I didn’t either. Not that you have vampire blood on you, there are a couple of spots on your mouth where you should just lick away. However, like I said, vampire blood will simply go away, and then you’d be as pristine as you were before if you’re asking. You’re a very strange man. Has anyone ever told you that before?” Not to his face, he supposed, but he wasn’t going to talk to the man who was…well, he didn’t know what he was doing

He looked around, looking for the bastard that had so much detail about him. He had to be close. He knew to have so much detail about the blood that was on his face. While he couldn’t find him, not even standing next to him, Marlin pulled out his handkerchief and wiped at his mouth. There were two fat streaks of blood on it. Dropping it to the ground, backing from it, he’d had just about enough of this man’s childish games.

“Where the hell are you? I demand that you show yourself, or so help me, Christ, I will end you.” The man laughed, no longer using the phone. He could hear the man in his thoughts like he was right there with him. “I’m not fucking around. Show me your face now.”

Backing away from the woman, the woman who had handed him her phone who now had the face of Kirk, he hit the back of his head on the wall behind him. Everywhere he looked, there he was. Peoples faces. The reflection in the glass that was the doors to his office. The manhole cover was a larger version of Kirk. He was on fire hydrants, flower blooms, as well as his own face when he looked for an avenue to escape and saw himself again in the reflection.

“Did I do as you wanted? Can you see my face? I should hope you’d know the look of the man that is going to make your life a living hell.” The laughter made him feel like he was going insane. It was high pitched and—no. That couldn’t be right. It was him screaming not the man that was even now taunting him.

Terrified now that he might well be going insane, Marlin had witnessed firsthand his mother going over the edge when she’d nearly gunned him down one trick-or-treat night when he’d been about nine.

He’d been dressed as a ghost, a sheet over him with holes cut out for his eyes. It had been all he could afford with his mother driving his father away, and there no money for any food in the house. As it was, Marlin had had to be treated at the hospital when his mother had tried to strangle him using the very sheet that he’d been wearing. After that, he’d gone to live with his grannie, a mean old buzzard that wanted him out of the house so that she could be alone again.

Turning his back to the streets of people that he didn’t want to look at, Marlin closed his eyes as tightly as he could. Putting his thumbs in his ears so that he’d not hear anyone screaming—he knew on some level that it was his voice that he heard—however he wanted nothing to do with the crowd that was forming right next to him. They were out to get him, just as his mother had told him when she’d been trapped by the people who had come to take her away.

Marlin didn’t know how long he’d stood there, humming and singing the alphabet over and over, until someone touched his shoulder. Again, something that his mother had done a great deal toward the end of her short but eventful life. Cringing from everything, he begged whoever touched him to leave him alone. He was barely hanging on to his own sanity and didn’t want to drag someone else into it.

“My name is Officer James Billing, Mr. Couch. We were called to do a welfare check on you by some of the people in your office to make sure that you’re all right. If you don’t mind answering a few questions, I can get you some help. You seem to be needing it.” He told the man that he wasn’t all right. There was a headless horseman in his office. “Headless horseman? Are you telling us that you have a dead body in your offices? I’ll have to check that out, of course. Will you be able to stay with my partner? I won’t be but a few minutes.”

“Yes. That man did it. He has been taunting me for the last few hours. I want you to go arrest him for the murder of my associate.” He asked if he was the headless horseman. “Well, of course it is. Are you even paying any attention to the things I’m telling you about? There is a bloody mess in my office that this Kirk guy did it to my associate when I threatened to harm his son. I will, too, but if he’s in jail…Will you please just go and see if he’s killed anyone else? My secretary is up there, and I’d just as soon she wouldn’t be hurt too. She knows a great deal about my operations, and I’d just as soon she was dead than talking up a storm. Go check. He’s up there in my office with my other henchman.”

They followed him up the elevator without saying a word. He certainly didn’t want to see the mess that was in his office, but he’d do this, just this one time, for them. Hopefully, it would take care that Kirk was in jail so that he could get into his office and ruin the man. Marlin couldn’t remember right off the top of his head if Kirk had done anything to him, but just the fact that he’d killed someone in his—

“Mr. Couch. You gave me a fright when you ran out of the office a half hour ago. What’s the matter? I know that you didn’t have any appointments today, but—” He asked if she’d gotten someone in his office to clean up the mess? “The mess? I’m not sure what you’re meaning. Mr. Lowel and Mr. Louis are awaiting your return so that they can—what are you doing now?”

He forcibly pulled Hilda from her seat and made her open his door. While she was doing that, he turned to the police officers and told them to just wait. They were going to see what Kirk had done to him. And Lowel. It occurred to him that Hilda had said that his men were waiting to talk to him, but one of them was dead, and he didn’t know what to think of—

“Mr. Couch. What dead body are you talking about?” He slipped around the officer who had entered his office. There wasn’t a body. “You said that Mr. Kirk removed his head and that he was in here. I don’t see anything like you described. The only two men that are in there are your henchmen; you did call them that. But no body—headless horseman or whatever. Are you sure that’s what you saw?”

“Yes, I’m sure. It was right there. I had blood all over me. I had to toss my jacket off because it was covered.” He picked up his suit jacket by two fingers and handed it off to the man. “Just have a look at that. See that it’s covered in blood.” It wasn’t.

Even when the officer turned the jacket inside out, it was still as clean as it had been when he put it on this morning. Grabbing his jacket from the man, he tore it into pieces while trying to find even a spot of blood—he remembered his handkerchief. Digging it out of his pocket, he handed it to the man as well.

“Here. Have a look at this. I know that it has blood on it. I saw…well, I saw it as well.” He watched as the two officers exchanged looks. He knew just what they were thinking. “I’m not insane. My mother was, and she nearly drove us all…I’m not insane. I know what I saw.”

As was the jacket clean, so was his handkerchief. He was tossing his office when it occurred to him that they’d switched out his office. How they’d done it, he hadn’t a clue, but that was all he could think that had happened. He asked Hilda what she’d done with his office. Even to his own ears, it sounded…off.

“Tell me, damn it.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t happy with him right now. “Please. I won’t be mad. Tell me what you did with switching out my office. And then tell the police that it was all a joke on me. I won’t be mad, but I need to know where my office is now.”

“It’s right there. Where you left it. Are you feeling all right, Mr. Couch? You don’t look so well.” He started to scream, barely able to hold it back while he tried to reason with Hilda once again about his office. “I don’t know what you think I am, sir, but I won’t have you accusing me of taking anything out of your office, much less the whole lot of rooms you have. I think you need to let these men take you to the hospital. You’re not acting right in the head.”

“My head is perfectly fine.” Both the officers put their hands on their guns when he screamed. Taking in another deep breath, he did that three more times before he thought that he could speak. “I’m perfectly fine. My head is fine, too. I’m just missing my office. The headless guy, well, he wasn’t headless, but he made one of my men headless, and that was all I could think about. You’ll see. As soon as someone tells me how they switched the offices around…maybe we’re on the wrong floor. That’s it. We got off on the wrong floor, and they’re playing with my head.”

Now that he was saying it out loud, he realized how ridiculous he sounded. Trying to regain some control over…well, everything that he’d said and done today, he looked at the officers and told them without resorting to hysterics that he was all right now. He’d been….he’d been upset before, but he was better now. Trying to back them out of the office, whomever it belonged to, they weren’t having any of it. He just knew that he was going to end up in the loony bin like his mother had.

~*~

Brad had to laugh at everything he thought of Couch trying to get away from what he had thought was gallons of blood. There had been nothing there, not even the two men that he’d summoned to his office. It was just Launder having a lot of fun messing with the man’s mind. Thinking about how he’d tossed his cell phone at the wall had him laughing all over again. It wasn’t until Toby came into the room that he thought he might have some control over his humor.

“You looked weird.” That’s all it took to set him off again. Leaning on the table so that he’d not fall over, he tried his best to explain what had gone down to Toby while he’d been taking his tests. “No, I’m pretty sure that you’re weird on top of being weirded out. Why did he think that there was blood all over him?”

“A trick of the mind.” He nodded, but Brad was almost as positive as he’d ever been that the young kid was humoring him. Finally able to stand up without breaking down again, it was Hamish who explained what had happened. While he wasn’t laughing as hard as he’d been, Toby finally understood.

“So you messed with his mind into thinking that’s what he was seeing. I can do that. I don’t get to practice much, but I can make people do what I want them to do sometimes. Mom thinks it’s not fair to do that to anyone, but we did use it when someone was getting frisky with her.” That sobered him right up. Asking Toby if he knew the names of the men who’d gotten frisky with his mom had him shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I know a few shifters, and there aren’t any of them that wouldn’t use that name and kill the other man. I understand that everyone is possessive, so no, nope, no way am I going to tell you so that I feel responsible for the harm that might come to them.” Brad told him that he’d only mess them up a little bit.

Toby snorted. Something that he noticed a lot of them did in this kiss. Even the dog, Joey, was a snorter. Thinking that he could wear Toby down more later, he let it go, at least until his mom returned. He’d figure it out.

As they were going over some of the amenities that were in the three houses that they were going to look at this evening, Toby was telling his mom on his new cell phone how the testing had gone. Toby felt all right about them, he told her.

Toby had been taking his tests yesterday to finish up his high school classes when it was suggested by the leap leader for him to take some tests on life skills that might get him out of a few freshman classes. He had already taken a few of the classes while waiting for his tests to be given to him. He was told that it wouldn’t be any trouble for them to test him on his Pre-college courses while he was there. After calling Becka and getting her permission to do it, Brad had dropped the young man off this morning to finish up. Now, they were making plans to go house hunting again, and this time with Becka. They were using the camera on both the phones to look at the houses that were on their list for tonight.

She was holed up at a hotel, waiting to be called from the company that she was picking up one of the orders that she was bringing back for his stores. It was the perfect time, he thought, to see what sort of places that she’d like so she’d be able to look and not take her eyes off the road for any length of time.

The white picket fence and the pool were something that she really wanted, and it seemed that the house they were looking for ticked off a few of the items that she thought needed to be in her home. Oh, and a fenced-in backyard. There wasn’t much else he could get out of her, but that she also wanted stability under her feet.

Toby didn’t care for the first house. Brad wasn’t sure that he did either. It was…for lack of a better term, it was blocky. Like someone had taken discarded blocks of all sizes and stacked them up like they were playing at building a house. The windows even looked like they had been discarded from another house and put in this one to fill in where the blocks wouldn’t fit. It was marked off before they even walked inside. The second one didn’t fair much better. But when they got to the third home, Brad was thinking that they’d found the perfect home.

While he and Toby toured the house with the realtor, Becka was asking questions that were answered by the other woman. Finding the pool out back, with a slide and rock garden by the pool, he knew that Toby loved it, and so did Becka. There was even a little boat house at the back of the land where they could put his boat in the water and cruise up and down the river. He had a thought that he wanted to get a pontoon boat now instead of something that would be fast. Taking an easy stroll down the river had an appeal that it didn’t have for him before. While Toby, much to the amusement of the realtor, swam in the pool to cool off, he walked into the back of the house that was the kitchen.

“The kitchen has been updated in the last year. Both of the previous owners loved to entertain, and doing so in the kitchen was something that they favored. If you’ll notice, that kitchen can open up and spill right into the deck with the pool. There is plenty of room in the dining room as well if the weather doesn’t cooperate.”

While the realtor talked about the tile on the floor as well as the floor-to-ceiling sliding doors, he looked at the craftmanship of the oak cabinets as well as the stone flooring that seemed to him had been dug right out of the earth and smoothed out to make the floor just about as beautiful as he’d ever seen. They were looking at the bedrooms on the second floor when Toby joined him. The kid looked like he’d found his forever home in this place, too.

“I was wondering at the price. It says here that the home has been empty since a year ago. If you’re saying that it’s priced to sell, why haven’t you sold it yet?” He thought that Becka made a good point, but he was willing to pay what they wanted for the house right now. The realtor told them both that it ended in a nasty divorce, and both sides didn’t want to give up their part of the home until the judge ordered it. “So we should expect trouble then. I thought things were just too good to be true about this place.”

He listened with Becka on what the court ordered sale of the house meant for the two of them as their realtor laid out the particulars. The house had to be sold and there wasn’t a reserve on the place. Meaning that if the judge wanted to and someone offered ten cents for the home, and he took it, the money would be divided in half for each of the previous owners. He liked the sound of that.

“What was the last bid on the house?” He wasn’t sure that the woman was going to answer Toby when he’d asked. When she finally did, he could have kissed the kid on his mouth. “What do you mean, people just expect it to be expensive. I think a lot of things are expensive that some people don’t. Can you just tell me what they want, and we can tell you yes or no? You’re not being very helpful that—or is that your plan? Not to sell the house to us?”

“Good heavens, no. I didn’t mean to… no, I just didn’t want you to walk away from this deal of a lifetime.” It was then that Brad realized that Toby had learned how to dicker with pricing from his mom. He just stood there with his hands over his chest like he’d seen Becka do a thousand times in the last couple of weeks. “What I meant to say was. The house isn’t cheaply made, nor is it—”

“So you’re thinking that because of the way…what? How we’re dressed? That my mom is a trucker that we can’t afford a home like this one? You’ve already written us off as buyers? Tell us why you’re acting like this if that’s not what’s going on.” The compulsion was there. The only other person that he knew of who could use it that well was Hamish. Brad watched the woman struggle with the words she didn’t want to say. Adding his own compulsion, he finally was able to break her down and start talking.

“The primary realtor, my boss, told me not to sell it to anyone that came in. He was waiting for his daughter to decide if she wanted the house or not before he allows anyone to see this place.” She looked defeated before continuing. “If anyone else buys this house, even if it’s his daughter, I don’t get any commission because he’s only allowing me to show the house to keep people off his back. Meaning the previous owners and the courthouse. If I were you, I’d call them directly and talk to them about buying it. There is no court order for them, as I was told to tell you, and frankly, they’re getting pissy because it’s been on the market for over a year, and they want to get on with their lives. I don’t blame them, and Shaw is blaming it on the market. Mr. Shaw, Caroll Shaw of Shaw and Shaw Realtor, is holding out for his child. Which isn’t a nice thing to do. Here is their number.”

Toby was talking to the realtor while he called the Webster couple. They weren’t getting a divorce, nor as he was told, were they ordered to sell the place, as he’d only just found out. After telling them what was going on, Becka told them about how the young woman who had been showing them the house wasn’t going to be making any money off the sale either. That, he thought, was the worst way to treat an employee of all.

“I tell you what. I’m going to hire you to work real estate deals for my company. I won’t shortchange you either. You help me out, and I’ll help you. But I want honesty from now on. Not half-truths that will get us both into trouble.” He explained how he was forever getting behind in his work because he had to go out and about trying to put businesses in the right building.

Brad told her how he liked to use existing buildings when he could. It saved both time and money for everyone. Benefiting a great many people, too. When Becka said that she was finished with the call to the Webster couple, it was Toby who was smiling. The kid, Christ, he loved this kid already.

“All right. This is the plan. You’re going to sell us the house because we called the Websters as they’re good friends of ours. By the way, they’re pissed off that Mr. Shaw is doing them dirty. They know that it’s in no way your fault, and they wanted to thank you, Rosemary, for telling her when you did. You tell the little fucker that you couldn’t very well tell us that lie because we would just check with the owners.” Rosemary smiled and asked how much they were going to offer on the house. “Oh, that’s been settled, and you will get a commission check on the full amount. For helping them out, the Websters are selling us the home at a great discount because she is planning to get the rest from Mr. Shaw. I have a feeling he’s not going to know what hit him. They’re pissed off something terrible.”

Everyone was in a good mood when Rosemary turned the keys over to them. After making sure that she had her story right about what to tell Shaw, she left them to walk around their new home. Shaw was either going to fire her, which she believed that he might, and she’d welcome it, or keep her commission check. Or try to anyway. That was part of the plan that the Websters were going to care for. Making sure that Rosemary got what she had coming to her.

Vicki Webster told him there was a boat in the boat house that he could keep because they’d purchased them a much larger one to go deep sea fishing. There wasn’t much of that around here, Vicki told him. After inviting them to come and see them when they were in town again, Brad made arrangements to have the things that he had in storage brought to their new home. Their home. He thought that had a perfect ring to it.

“I don’t have anything for my room. Not unless you’re planning for me to live in the rig from now on.” He’d not thought of that when Brad suggested that they stay in the house tonight. Toby had basically grown up in a rig and wouldn’t even have a desk that he would be able to use in the house. “I don’t even have an air mattress or a good pillow. I never, well, I had hopes of being in a house, but not this soon. Do you think we can hit a couple of shops so that I can sleep in my room?”

“All right. It’s shopping time. I own a few furniture stores so we’ll hit them up to see what we can get delivered for you tonight. It doesn’t have to be anything that you want to keep forever. Whatever we end up getting can go into one of the spare bedrooms. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Brad rubbed his hands together. “Then tomorrow we’ll do some shopping to get the things that we’re going to need forever. Towels, linens, and the like. Even a couple of televisions now that we can have them hooked up. Do you like sports, Toby?”

For the first time in a very long time, he was excited to have enough money to spend on his new family. Not just a few thousand bucks that he couldn’t live without but billions and billions of dollars that were earning him more every day while it sat in his investments. Thinking about all the things that they needed, he decided that he didn’t want the things at his home here in his new place with his family; he wanted everything new so that he could make their memories while breaking things in. Mentally rubbing his hands together again, the first thing that he was going to get was an engagement ring for his wife. He wanted to get something for his son, too, to make sure that he knew that he would love him as his own, just like Becka did towards him.

Yes, Brad thought. He was as excited as he’d ever been in starting a new life. From this day on, it was about making his little family happy and safe. And that, in turn, would make him happy. Happier than he’d been in forever.