Chapter 8

8

Nothing felt the same without Gunnar Erickson shadowing her every move. The last two weeks she'd worked before the shooting, he had been in the building, mostly in her office, just working on his own files. And watching her. Making her aware of him. If he hadn't been right next to her, she had known he was near.

Watching her with that wicked, wicked look in those blue eyes.

Damn it, Powell missed him.

She must have sat at her desk, staring out her window, one hand resting over that man's baby, for a good fifteen minutes, finally admitting to herself that she missed him. More than she was really ready to think about. It was her first day back in her office. She'd taken a week off to take care of Haldyn. Make sure her bestie in the world was going to be okay. But life had to go on.

She missed her big Viking shadow.

He had done something to get inside her head. She just had to admit it to herself.

"You bought Kyle Scott's house. Don't you think that's a bit weird?"

Powell looked up. She hadn't heard anyone enter her office, damn it. She'd been thinking of other things. Like a little Viking baby with his father's wicked grin, and chasing that little Viking baby through her house, playing. Like making memories with her baby, the way her parents had always made with her.

But there she was, Brianna Claireson. Interrupting Powell's daydream. With a disgusted look on her face. Great.

Powell immediately felt a migraine starting. "I bought the estate of Victor Scott after he almost killed one of my closest friends, yes. I own nineteen other houses in Hughes Heights now, Bri. I don't think that's weird. I think it was a sound business move. It was really cheap. And I am probably going to buy another this month." She'd bought three last month. It was starting to become an obsession. She'd probably net a good fifteen million once those houses were repaired—they were foreclosures, after all—and sold.

And she'd have paid five times what she had paid just to get the Scott house. For her friends. To make the nightmares go away.

"Rumor has it you are tearing it down. It's a beautiful house. You shouldn't tear it down that way. It's like they will be gone forever."

"That's kind of the point. Victor Scott nearly killed Shelby, remember? His goons nearly killed my other best friends. They shot them, Bri. Shot them, one of them in the back. Do you think I really want his house to stand there like a shrine, complete with stone statues of that guy, reminding Shelby and others about that night every time they see it?"

"But the Scotts and Wilsons have lived in that house since it was first built. Like a hundred years ago." And Brianna almost worshipped tradition in Hughes Heights. Because it was where the best families in Finley Creek had always lived.

Best meaning wealthy in Brianna's narrow world.

"And the Scotts are no more, Brianna. They are dead, remember? Victor died. The day he tried to drug one of my closest friends and force her to bear his evil child? Remember Shelby, the woman you and Bethany have known for years?"

"Of course, I remember Shelby! Her brother was my brother's best friend." Brianna sounded so indignant. She and her sister had been catty bullies to Shelby—out of jealousy. Powell hadn't missed that. No one had missed that—except maybe Brianna and Bethany.

Sometimes, Brianna was a bit much. Well, mostly just clueless and snotty, but much. Powell honestly didn't think Brianna meant to be that way—at least, most of the time Powell thought Brianna didn't—but Brianna just was not a very likable woman. She never had been.

"So what are you going to do with all of their things? There had to be private stuff in there, right? Are you just going to go through it and everything? Throw it away?"

"What wasn't seized by the TSP that has any value at all is going to be sold. Maybe even auctioned. I plan to donate the money to children's charities." Powell had it all planned out. She even had an estimation of what the contents were worth. And where she and her friends intended the donations to go.

"Oh. Just like that. Erasing people we have known our whole lives, just like that. Kyle and his cousins, and…it's just kind of sad. Everything that has happened. That's all."

First, Powell hadn't known Kyle Scott had cousins nearby, other than one—the one Powell had purchased the house from. Second, she really didn't feel up to this. "Did you just come to my office here to ask about Victor Scott's evil lair?"

"Well, no. I have other things to discuss with you."

"Did you consider making an appointment?"

Brianna just looked at her like Powell was insane. "Well, I would have spoken with you at your house, but you aren't there right now, and I couldn't wait. I have been waiting for days to find you."

Because it was the middle of the workday, but that wouldn't have occurred to Brianna at all. Not Miss I Have Never Worked and Never Intend To. Powell barely resisted dropping her head to her desk and begging the universe for answers about why she had Brianna today. But that whole "Powell's-mother-had-raised-her-better-than-that!" kind of thing was so at play every time she had to deal with Brianna. Her mother had told her time and time again to be kind to Brianna. To be the example.

"No. I've been staying with Houghton and Melody for a while." Powell checked her watch. She had another fifteen minutes before Cara would arrive from her class at FCU. Powell didn't want Brianna anywhere near Cara. That could be a disaster of epic proportions. That was one Coleson who definitely didn't have filters. "You have ten minutes. That's all I have on my schedule. What's wrong?"

She would never call this woman a friend. A friend was someone you trusted and counted on, in her opinion—and that was definitely not Brianna. But she had known Brianna her entire life. They had been in the same class at Finley Creek Academy from day one. They had lived less than ten blocks apart Powell's entire life. Even now.

Brianna had just always been in Powell's social sphere. Whether she liked her or not. Brianna was shallow, lacking in compassion, completely oblivious to the real world, and rather rude. Powell didn't think Brianna always meant to be that way. Brianna just never seemed to think about how what she did or said might impact—or hurt—other people. It drove Powell insane.

"I think we have a problem with the Colesons. We need to do something about them. For real."

Oh, hell. Not the Complaints about Colesons again. "How so?"

"We need to find a way to keep people from coming into Hughes Heights. The riff-raff sort. I mean, those women all have jobs, I guess, but their friends aren't the kind of people we really want walking the streets of our neighborhood. They are so lower class. I have seen their friends around everywhere lately. This week especially. Creepy-looking people I haven't ever seen in Hughes Heights before. Even at that house up the road from theirs. And at that empty house right next to your parents, Powell. And the press is always trying to get into Hughes Heights now. It's all because of them. "

Well, technically, the press had started targeting Hughes Heights residents after millionaire businessman Victor Scott had died trying to keep Shelby Jacobson, now Shelby MacNamara—a wealthy heiress and one of Powell's bestest friends in the whole world—as his baby-making captive. That was long before everything had started with the Colesons. Powell just didn't point that out to Brianna.

"I wasn't aware we had people walking the streets of our neighborhood. Are they at least using the walking paths? That is what they were put in for, after all. And the Colesons do have jobs. That really isn't shocking, Bri. Lots of people living in Hughes Heights have jobs. I have a job. Two of them, actually. My parents have jobs. My brothers have jobs. Most of the people on my entire street have jobs. You should try it sometime."

And that went right over Brianna's head. Powell bit back a groan as Brianna just stared at her, a confused look on her face. "I do things. I run the HOA, and I spend time with my friends. And I manage my share of my brother's estate."

What was left of it. Brianna played at it. After her brother had nearly killed Cara's cousin Ariella—the governor's wife —all of his proceeds from illegal activities had been seized. Or so Powell had overheard.

What was left of his personal estate had been equally divided, as outlined in Banks's will—of which Mac had had the dubious pleasure of executing—between Brianna and her older sister Bethany.

Which, to give Bethany credit, she was doing a good job of managing the Claireson estate's assets, businesses her father had invested in or built during his lifetime. Bethany's work probably funded Brianna's lifestyle right now.

Powell been there when Mac had had to turn over Banks's records to the TSP. It hadn't been pleasant for her brother. For a while there, the Snotty Garlic had insinuated Mac had known what Banks was up to.

That Mac was involved.

That they had been friends their entire lives and Mac was the missing man involved. Someone with the nickname Mac had been mentioned in Banks Claireson's records. It most definitely had not been her Mac.

Banks had been a client, and that was it. Mac and Banks had never been friends.

Mac—McKinley Mason Barratt—had a core of honor a billion miles thick. If he had thought a client was doing something illegal, he would have made the ethical choice. Of that, Powell was one hundred percent certain.

"So tell me what you think we are supposed to do about the Colesons? And, Bri—you are down to eight minutes now. Start talking."

She wanted Brianna out of there before Cara showed up. The last thing she needed was to see Cara go after Brianna for Brianna saying or doing something about Cara's family. Cara was extremely protective of her family. And she could turn into a rabid wolverine where her family was concerned.

No. Brianna had to go. Fast.

Or this was just not going to end well at all.