Chapter 4

Bradon wasn't happy with the way things were going for him. Of course, that wasn't saying much. He'd made a mistake in talking to the fire department after the fire. He'd regret that for a while, but the fact that someone had called the police on him pissed him off. No one had your back anymore, and he was beginning to think that the entire world was like that. Always out for number one, themselves. Not that he wasn't as well, but damn it, he had good reasons for wanting things to go his way. He deserved it more than the next man because he was a good man.

What had really pissed him off was that he'd hired several people to look for his wayward niece and didn't have any luck with that. He thought that rather than looking for her, they had taken his money and fucked off. He'd make them pay later.

Bradon had been assured that she was in the apartment when he'd set fire to it, but the fire department said that everyone had gotten out just as the apartment that he'd been told that she was in started to fall inward. And liars. People would lie about anything. That didn't help him one bit in finding Grace, and that was something that he was going to have to talk to her about when he did find her. She was behind in keeping him in the style that he thought that he should be still.

It had pissed him off that his sister hadn't left him anything when she'd died. She and that sap of a husband that she had were rolling in the dough by the time he'd figured out that his parents hadn't left him nearly what he thought that their estate had been worth when he'd knocked them off. He'd gotten more than he had thought there would have been for him, but come to find out, his sister had gotten more than twice as much as he'd gotten. Something about loans from his parents that he'd never paid back.

"That was some kind of bullshit. Like you're supposed to pay your parents back." He used to say that they could take it out of his inheritance when he'd been asked about paying them back. He never dreamed that was what they'd do. Right down to the penny, they'd been keeping track of his ‘loans' they'd called them. The worse part was, they'd been writing it down in this ledger called Bradon Shipley Bullshit and Excuses. Christ, oh mighty, he'd been sorely and overly fucked by them. Not once but several times, as they had actually given him next to nothing compared to what they actually had, and the fact that they thought that he should pay them back when they had all the shit that they had. Then there was his sister.

Angle had been an all right younger sister. She had avoided him as much as possible and only spoke to him when he was hanging around the house with his parents, looking for a handout. Mostly, like all nerds were, she'd stayed in her room, never really interacting with him while he was visiting.

Bradon had left home when he'd been sixteen and hadn't looked back. Actually, he'd been kicked out. His parents having enough of his shit, another thing that parents were supposed to do, not care what their kids were up to, and told him never to return. Other than to borrow money or scamming them out of something was the only time that he'd ever gone back to see them. How was he supposed to have known that they would make him pay them back after they were dead? Ingrates, all of them. He was glad that he'd been able to kill the lot of them. Good riddance to them all and their taking his inheritance. He was the oldest by god, and he didn't like the fact that his baby sister, a girl no less, had gotten the lion's share of all their fortune.

"Mr. Jackson, you have a phone call." He stood up to leave his cell, startled out of his thinking, when the officer cleared his throat before speaking. "No, you're not going anywhere. You might say that we've been warned not to trust you one inch. I have the phone right here. And don't think you can keep it. It'll be turned off again as soon as the call is disconnected."

That was just one more example of how much people didn't trust. It had been in his head to use the phone for as much as he could, but they nipped that in the bud before he could get a chance. Taking the phone from the officer, he waited for the man to leave before he answered. Of course, he was told that he would stand right there and also, as an added bonus, he was told to remember that all his conversations were recorded.

"Hello. Who is this?" The man at the other end laughed, and he nearly tossed the phone away. But keeping it by his ear, he waited until whatever humor the man wasn't sharing with him was over before he spoke to him again. "I'm busy right now. If you have something to say to me, then say it. I don't want to fuck around with you."

"My name is Maverick Strong. And I doubt very much that you're all that busy sitting in a jail cell. Also, I'm sure that you've heard about the Strong family." He said that he'd not, even though their names were plastered all over everything in town. "I'm calling you for two reasons. The first one is that my family is gathering as much information on you as we can. I believe with what we've uncovered you'll be sitting in a cell for the rest of your life. Did you really kill your parents?"

"Oh yeah, says who? You? Not likely. Just so you know, I'm going to meet my bail as soon as the courthouse and bank is opened up again." He wasn't going to meet anything until his bank let him into his funds. He couldn't even call up the money that he had stashed away because, being in here, he didn't have access to his account information. Bradon just knew that was going to come back and bite him in the ass by not memorizing those numbers. He realized that the man was still talking, and he had to have him repeat what he'd been saying.

"I said that your money in the Cayman Islands is gone as well as your bank account that had been seized by the feds is now empty as well. You shouldn't have messed with my wife on that." He asked him why he'd care what his wife had or not. That it didn't concern him. "Oh, you must have missed that, too, I'm thinking. Grace, your niece, she's my wife. We were married recently, and she's been so helpful in remembering things that will help with your prison sentence."

"You lie." The man only laughed again. "What's the matter with you? Are you stupid or something? Why would you think that I'd find that—I tell you what, you tell me where she is, and I'll forget about the part where you lied to me. I hate liars with a passion."

"Yet you are one yourself, we've found out. You were never given access to Grace's money, nor were you the one who was supposed to see to her upbringing. Not that you did it very well. Without your help she has done very well for herself. It's amazing what you can find out when you have contact with the attorneys who read the will. Your sister even went so far as to say that you were never to have contact with Grace or her money. There was a great deal of it still missing even after emptying your accounts. You wouldn't want to share where the rest is, would you? That would be a nice wedding gift—"

"I'm not fucking kidding right now. You take care that you put all my money back." He thought about the other things that were said in his sister's will. "What gives you the right to be nosing in things that don't have a single thing to do with you? Did she put you up to this? Grace, I mean? I've been protecting her all her life from people like you. Nosy people that think that because they have a few bucks that they can do whatever they fucking please."

"You mean like you did to her?" He asked him what he was talking about. "You getting into her inheritance. Then there is the thing that you had going on at the bank. That woman has been arrested, too, just as you have. And so you know, that money didn't even make a dent in the money that you've stolen from her over the years."

"She owes me. And she damned well will pay me—I gave up my whole life for her, and this is how she repays me? By sending some dick head to lord over me, how he has better connections than I do. Well, that's where you're wrong. I'm going to get it all back and more when I'm through with her. I might even take some of your money while I'm at it. You'll be lucky if you can buy a—what the fuck are you laughing at, you moron?"

"You really think that you can take me on? That we're, I don't know, like each other?" The laughter stopped, and he could hear a long, deep breath leave his body. For whatever reason, his cock leapt up into his ass, and he'd need a miracle to find his balls. He'd been so afraid. "I'm not at all like you, you mother fucker. And when you come to me, because I have no doubt that will, you had better have all your ducks in a row because I'm going to shoot them off one fucking duck at a time."

He expected the phone to be slammed down. Expected the man to hurl more threats at him while he was feeling so vulnerable. But all he'd done was close the connection like they'd been speaking of the weather or something mundane as that.

Handing the phone off to the officer when he asked for it, Bradon felt like his legs were too shaky to stand. Staggering over to his cot, he barely made it to it when his legs simply stopped working. As he sat there, the words that the man had said scared him.

He'd not even screamed and yelled at him like he'd been doing to him. But when he said those things, his voice was calm and cool. Almost as if he'd been reading a book, and there was no action in the pose.

When his dinner was brought to him, he asked if he could have a newspaper. He needed to read it for himself. Making sure that the man, while he didn't know him, he was sure that he'd not lie to him, that he'd been right about marrying Grace. If it were true, there would be repercussions that he'd never dreamed of. Because with all his bravo on the phone with the man, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to get close enough to Grace without severe damage done to himself. And that was one thing he did not like to be damaged in any way, shape, or form.

There it was, front page news. Another Strong billionaire was off the market. Billionaire ? That was another whole crop of shit that he was going to have to figure out if he should deal with it or not. He could, well, he could have matched the man million for million. At least before they'd been robbing him of his money. But being a billionaire wasn't anything that he could have beat. He wasn't stupid enough to think that he was.

People with that kind of money and him hearing about the Strongs being of old money, didn't care if they had to grease a few palms to get what they wanted. That was something that he did all the time, just not on the level that this Strong could do it. He might just have to leave town and regroup. Come back another day to take him on. But the problem with that was that he was being wrapped up in a nice gift with a bow and all to the feds. Christ, he hated being caught.

Not only that, but if it was true, and again, he had no reason to doubt the man, he had no money. As it was now, he'd not even be able to buy him a nice meal at a cheap hotel. Much less affording the nice meal. Picking up his meal, he couldn't believe that he'd been reduced to eating meatloaf. Christ he hated the working class foods that they deemed wonderful.

Eating the loaf on the two slices of whole wheat bread wasn't nearly as bad as he'd thought it would have been. There was enough of the sweet katsup juice to put it all over the meat when he'd eaten it. The mashed potatoes were made with potatoes, too. He could always tell instant over real.

Three days ago, he'd been given a pencil and a cheap sheet of paper. He'd told the officer that he was needing it to write down things that he didn't want to forget at his court hearing. Whenever that was. But so far, all he'd been using it for was to make notes on what he'd have to do to get out of there. Crossing off one of the things on his list, getting a gun from the officers that fed him—they didn't carry when they were bringing in food, and that pissed him off too. Like they were doing this just to piss him off. As soon as he saw one of the officers, he struck up a conversation with them about the rules of all things.

"Don't you guys have rules that you have to follow?" The officer who had come back to get his tray, the unarmed officer, looked like he was thinking on that. "I mean, wouldn't it be nice if the people like me, law-abiding citizens—why are you laughing? That other fucking shit laughed at me too."

"The very fact that you're telling me that you're a law-abiding citizen doesn't mean crapola when you're sitting behind bars for a long list of crimes. Not to mention the fact that your list gets longer all the time." He told him to just answer the fucking questions. "Yes, we have rules. A great many of them. The trouble is, people like you think they can bend the rules almost to the point of breaking and still think that they shouldn't be in jail."

"I shouldn't be. I have rights, you know? And you're infringing on my rights for me to have a fair trial. You guys keep looking into shit that isn't making me happy. I want you to stop that right now." The man was still laughing as he made his way to the front of the stationhouse. "Did you hear me? You're going to be in big trouble when I bring it up at the courthouse how you guys were treating me."

Bradon thought that he'd heard the man to say go for it, but he wasn't sure. Sitting back down, he was able to add two more things to his list. It was growing, too, his list of grievances that he was figuring out for himself that would get him all his money back as well as out of the charges that were against him. Knowing they were weak didn't stop him from looking anyway.

To get out, he was going to have to talk to Gracie and tell her what udder nonsense it was to press charges to her only living relative. That sounded so good that he unlined it twice. She just wasn't being nice to him, and he didn't think that was right either. None of the things she'd been doing of late were very nice of her.

Then there was the top one, the one where they were digging too deeply into his life was something that he knew if he could get them to stop, would negate the rest of his list because that would basically devoid the others. He just needed to come up with some brilliant reason why they should stop. Bradon didn't think that saying that he just wanted them to stop was going to go very far. Perhaps he'd just use the one about being Gracie's only relative again. That's the ticket he told himself.

It took him the better part of an hour to get finished up with his list. Or as best he could. The lights had been turned off, and he was supposed to be sleeping. Like he was a ten year old having to be told when to go to bed, for Christ's sake. But he kept his mouth shut, knowing that they were keeping a list of their own about how much he cooperated when they told him something.

Bradon was a nightlife person. He loved being out when everyone else was cuddled up in their little beds. He made his best deals in the cover of darkness. Even going so far as to make sure that his people were following the rules that he'd beaten into them about what he wanted done. That was another thing that he found that was difficult for people to understand. If they're asked to do a certain thing, then they should just shut the fuck up and do it. Not tell him that it wasn't anything that they had signed on for or some shit like that. Once again, he thought that there should have been a book.

He'd oftentimes thought that he'd write the book. How to Be a Millionaire By Being a Fucking Prick would have been the name of it. Long, but it got the point of the book across. Closing his eyes against the harshness of the brilliant moon shining on him, he felt himself drifting off with thoughts of chasing the next big money maker. There was shit tomorrow that he might be able to take care of, and he was going to make it work, even if he had to use the phone somehow to get things moving.

~*~

Maverick couldn't believe how many boxes of ‘junk' that was lying out on the lawn of the household he and his family had gone through. His dad told him that it made him consider downsizing even more than they had after Clay and his family had moved into the Manor house. Looking at the stuff, not all of it junk, he could understand his dad's meaning. Who on earth needed more than one cheese grater?

There were other things as well that there were duplicates of, but he wasn't going to think about that. He and Grace had counted nine beds, all of them looking to be about a queen that they sorely needed for their house. They didn't have guests or family yet that would need a bed, but he thought that if there were friends coming into town or something like that, he'd be prepared. They were standing in front of one particularly beautiful set when his mom came to them.

"I have never been very good at betting at these sorts of things. So I asked your dad, and you know what he told me? To find Sherm. He seems to be able to get the best price for a lot of things. I want you to know that I'm going to do it, too. Are you hoping to score some bedroom furniture?" Grace told his mom about the empty bedrooms and how they were going to fill them out. "Aren't they all hardwood floors in there? I believe that they are. You might want to have a look at the rugs that they're going to be auctioning off, too. But right now, the police are looking them over. I have no idea why they'd need rugs but there you have it." Maverick nodded before telling her what he knew.

"Someone here reported that one of the rolled-up rugs had a body in them. Some kids, no doubt, trying to cause a scene." Grace and his mom wandered over to the rugs to have a look. He was nearly to the front of the box lots they were selling off first when his dad joined him. "You have your eye on something here, Dad?"

"Sherm is going to be bidding for both myself and your mom. He's a wonderful kid, don't you think?" Maverick said that he thought so as well and wasn't at all surprised that Sherm joined them at the lots. "Maverick, you should see how well he's doing on selling some of the things that he got at his first auction. I think that he's made nearly a thousand bucks already."

"You want to invest that, Sherm. Get more money for your buck." When the auction started on the boxes that he wanted, they all stepped back from him. He loved the fact that they just seemed to understand about the auction zone.

He ended up winning all the boxes that he wanted pulse eight more for less than ten bucks. There were some tools in the boxes that he knew his contractor had lost, and he didn't feel the least bit upset with getting them all for a good price. Standing near the boxes but far enough away to be able to talk to his dad, he asked him if Gracie had been upset about the newspaper article.

"No. I mean, I think she was a little embarrassed at first. Then, when I told her the thinking behind it, she was thrilled. Last night, when I spoke to Bradon, I mentioned it to him. Joey said that he'd asked for a newspaper right after the phone call, so it had the desired effect." Dad asked him if he was going to the prehearing on Monday. "I'm going with Gracie. She's going to be asked to testify. How much more information was anyone able to get from the bloodwork on his parents? Jade said she had it, but I didn't want to pester her too much. She was really doing a great job with getting stuff on the man to set him up in jail forever."

"There are two pretrials going on Monday and Tuesday. There is the one for Toria's sister, Lorie. I nearly forgot about it until I looked at the calendar. I have to admit, using that thing to schedule around this entire family and the grandkids is very handy. I know that I have to make sure that Sherm has three books for his online classes that start the following Monday." Maverick told him that he used it all the time and loved the family share, too."

While keeping an eye on the furniture, they talked about the two trials. The one with Lorie had been the worst they'd had to deal with. Lorie Dutch had confessed to telling Sherm's biological grandparents that her sister was taking the baby to France for some reason. Toria had been nearly dead when a neighbor had brought over Sherm a birthday gift, and she found her on the floor bleeding to death from gunshot wounds to her head and chest. Sherm had been kidnapped by them, and it was all because of her sister, who didn't think that her one little lie was worth her getting into trouble about. She was the worst narcissistic person he'd ever met. Not only nearly killing her sister off, but the grandparents had been killed as well when it was figured out that they were fleeing the country with the young boy.

He got the bedroom sets for much less than he had budgeted himself for. Counting the lot boxes that were still selling, he had made off really well. Maverick was glad that he'd brought his truck in case he won them and was now glad that Grace had told him to do it. Laughing, he hung around the box lots still talking to his dad.

They didn't get into anymore more serious than the upcoming holidays, as well as a couple of financial things that his dad wanted him to look into. Making a note on his phone, he was ready to hit the larger boxes when Grace and his mom joined them. Sherm had gotten them a great deal on his parent's items, and Dad said he was paying for dinner if they wanted to join them. Grace didn't want to leave just yet. There were things in the house that she was looking into so while she and Sherm went into the house to look things over—he didn't care what it was so long as she was happy—while his dad made reservations. He just wanted them, the six of them, to have a meal together tonight.

Dinner was wonderful. Mostly, he attributed to the company, but he was full and didn't want to move either. He and Grace had been fast food for the past couple of weeks and the contractors said that they'd have the kitchen finished up by next weekend. He couldn't wait. There was something to be said for having a home cooked meal. That was something that he was looking forward to more than anything else.

After driving home, pulling the truck into the shell of a garage that was being put on the new property, they walked hand in hand into the house. They both wandered around the kitchen area, thinking that it was never going to be finished. But the walls were up, and the new cabinets had been put in since he'd been here this morning. Tomorrow, he'd get the beds cleaned up and then put them in the bedrooms.

There were leftovers in the fridge that had arrived, too, that hadn't been put against the wall but had been plugged in. Looking them over, he decided that he'd not eat them and tossed them into the trash. Dad warned him about tossing things out in the yard as that would attract all kinds of varmints.

"I'm exhausted. How about you?" Maverick told Grace that he was about as bone tired as he'd ever been. "I know we have to get up early tomorrow to go to the courthouse to file the paperwork for the new addition on the back of the house—no wait, it's Saturday tomorrow. Cancel all that. I'm going to sleep until I want to wake up and not an alarm screaming at me to do so."

"I love that plan." She'd been keeping him at arm's length because she was so very stressed out about the trial. He didn't blame her. It would be over soon, he knew.

The thing was, he was all right with not making love to her yet. He wanted her. There was no doubt about that. But he also wanted their union—he laughed a little about the use of such an old-fashioned word—to be good for them both. To have come to him, willingly and with her heart in it, he wasn't worried about them together. Maverick found himself not to be worried about a great many things when it came to the two of them being married and happy. She was his one and only, and they had the rest of their lives to do the things that married people did. Making love was only a small part of that.

Plus there was a great deal hanging on Grace's testimony she was to give on Monday morning. She was going to talk about how he'd beaten her, taken her money right from her account that he wasn't on, as well as burning down hers as well as a great many other people's homes because he wanted her to pay. However, he thought that his family had been able to dig up enough anyway to keep the man out of their hair for a long time. The same with Torie's sister. They were bad people and set up to get their comeuppance in a jury of their peers.

Taking a shower again to wash off all the dust he'd gotten into tonight, he was so exhausted that he didn't think that he'd make it to the bed after coming out of the bathroom. As soon as he laid down, a wave of dizziness washed over him, and he let himself fall back onto the pillow and be consumed by darkness.