Chapter 26

"Of course he will," Doreen replied, but mentally she was urging Mugs to go find Mack. At that, with the door still wide open, Thaddeus flew out above Reggie's head, crying and cawing. She cried out, "Find Mack, Thaddeus! Find Mack!"

Although Reggie tried to jump up and grab him, Thaddeus darted around him, and then she noted Goliath slipping through and racing upstairs as well. Reggie ran up behind them, trying to slam the door shut, but they were already out.

And, with that, she smiled, as a great sense of relief washed over her.

Reggie came back down, glaring, and swearing a blue streak.

"That's terrible language, you know."

He turned and stepped toward her, his wrath raising his hand in fury.

She nodded. "That just makes you like Mathew."

Immediately he froze and slowly dropped his hand. "He really did like to punch you, didn't he?"

"Until I stopped reacting. He didn't like that, and he found another outlet."

"That was the boxing hobby he picked up," Reggie muttered absentmindedly. "That was my suggestion actually. I told him that one of these days he wouldn't be able to hide the bruises, and then he stopped beating you. So, just for that, you should sign the paperwork anyway."

"Maybe, but I still can't sign anything with my hands like this."

He stared at her and said, "I don't trust you."

"I can't help that. You expect me to sign when I can't hold a pen properly. The signatures won't pass inspection, especially when compared to my earlier signatures. You don't think they'll have to be verified as legal documents?"

He nodded. "I wondered how that process worked."

"I had also already assigned Robin to be my lawyer to make all these decisions and to act on my behalf," she explained, "but I don't know what happens in your case. I presume Mathew had something figured out, but he was my husband, so that's a different story. In your case, I don't know."

Reggie's face twisted in fury, as he realized it might not be as easy as he had hoped.

"I'm sure, if you get a crooked lawyer, they'll find some way to forge my signature onto a document, making them my legal representative, but you should know it'll cost you a pretty penny."

"Everything costs in this world," he snapped.

She nodded. "That's very true. Everything costs." At that, she heard Mugs barking outside.

"What's his problem?"

"Mugs wants back in."

Reggie hesitated, then looked up at the door, as the barking got louder and louder, sounding more frantic.

Finally he turned to Doreen and asked, "What's wrong with him?"

"Maybe he wants me," she said. "Did you ever think about that?"

He snapped, "Doesn't matter if he does or not. I'll have to kill him if he doesn't shut up. He'll bring somebody over to check on you."

"Yeah, he sure will," she agreed. Soon she heard a cat howling, and she smiled. "That's Goliath."

Then they suddenly heard a raucous high-pitched voice calling out, "Police, police! We need police, police!"

Reggie stared at her in horror.

She shrugged. "Thaddeus is pretty smart and can speak. All my animals are pretty smart. And that would be them outside, causing a ruckus."

He paled as he stared at her. "Good God, what are you running here, a zoo?"

"Kind of," she said, with a nod. "They love me, and they know when I'm in trouble."

"They do not," he snapped. "That's total nonsense. I'm not that gullible."

"No, but Mathew also mentioned how you weren't the smartest cookie in the jar."

His expression turned ugly, as he stepped toward her.

She nodded. "He really wasn't very fond of you, and I'm sorry for that. You deserved better."

"I sure as hell did. And I did a lot of deals with him."

"Yeah, I know, but that doesn't mean he treated you right in those deals."

He pondered that and then shrugged. "I can't kill him a second time," he muttered, "so it doesn't really matter."

"I understand," she said, "and this way, you're still not getting full justice, which is also hard. I'm sure Mathew took you to the cleaners on a few other things in life, and you probably didn't even see it coming."

"He told me that it was an accident on one."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't. Nothing Mathew did was an accident."

Reggie stiffened, as he thought about it. "Maybe not, and all the more reason for me to get this payoff now and get out of here."

But outside the crazy din continued, and now people were starting to yell, "What's going on? What's going on?"

"Reggie, you have one chance to get out of here before the cops come running," she warned him.

"The cops won't listen to this. They'll bring in animal control."

She smiled at him with pity. "You don't understand who these animals are though."

"Are you some celebrity or something?"

"Or something," she replied, with a nod. Outside, Thaddeus was kicking up a scream, like she'd never heard out of him. Even Goliath was howling at the top of his lungs. She didn't know who could possibly not hear it. If Richard was home, he would be calling the police, as would the neighbors on the other side, although she hadn't had a whole lot to do with them. Hopefully anybody would be calling for the cops right now. At least she hoped so, and that hope was enough to keep her going.

"I can't leave without these papers. Hurry up and sign them." He tossed them closer to her.

She held up her bound hands. "No, not until you undo my hands," she repeated in exasperation. "It's simple. You want me to sign? Undo the zip ties."

And, with that, he glared at her and then brought out a pocketknife and quickly cut the ties between her hands.

She slowly rubbed at her wrists. "Look at that. They made me bleed."

"So what," he snapped in an ugly tone of voice. "That's nothing compared to what I'll do to you if you don't sign those darn forms."

She glared at him. "You don't have to be so mean."

"You don't have to be so stupid," he yelled. Pointing to the pen, he bellowed, "Start signing now!" And he held the pocketknife in such a way that she knew he was nearly out of control, and the din outside was terrifying him too.

"You should run," she repeated calmly, as she picked up the papers. "Absolutely no way you'll get away with this." She looked at the paperwork and, even in the darkened basement, she could read enough, then started to smile. "Wow, sure I'll sign these." And she picked them up and started to sign each one of the documents.

"Thank God for that," he said fervently, and he snatched them from her hands.

"You didn't read them, did you, Reggie?"

"Why do you say that?" he asked, turning to look at the papers, frowning to get a good read of them.

"All this does is sign them back over to Mathew, but who do you think is inheriting everything anyway?"

He stared at her in shock and started flipping through the papers. "No, no, no, I copied off the right ones."

"No, you didn't. You copied the ones Mathew had saved, which already had his information filled out," she explained. "These can never be filed because he's deceased."

At that, Reggie started to scream in outrage. She couldn't do a whole lot because her feet were still bound, but still, she struggled to lift the chair legs, realizing he'd strapped each of her legs to one chair leg. She had to get one leg kicked out past the chair leg and free, and then the other.

Meanwhile he was still staring at the papers in horror.

"Better luck next time," she called out, as she made a break for the door. He came running after her, and halfway up the stairs he caught her by the waist, pulling her back. She tumbled down the stairs, crying out in pain as she landed at the bottom.

"No way, no way."

"You can't fix it now," Doreen said, "so you better run, before the cops get here."

He stared at her in a full panic, looking around, before deciding that a hasty retreat was the best bet, at least for the moment. He scrambled up the stairs, threw open the double doors, and bolted into the garage, only to come up against a very solid wall.

A wall named Mack.