Page 8 of Harman

After they were finished up with everything, she was in no hurry to get up and leave and they had an enjoyable extra hour where they talked about things that were going on around town. Little and large, Alexander was happy that she had some information on the things.

“So the mayor is on his way out, you say?” She told him how they’d figured out he was taking money from other departments to put into his own personal accounts. “To cover his mother-in-law’s gambling debt. Oh, the things we do for family at times. She more than likely goes right back out after he pays things off so that she can gamble again. It’s a sickness, you know. One that some vampires get too deep in and their entire lives work is taken from them.”

“Have you ever gambled? Even if it was just a small bet?” He said that he hadn’t, but he knew many others, humans too, that ended their lives when it got to be too overwhelming. “I understand that. I had a client who was into gambling so bad that he lost not only his entire business but his home, family as well as his reputation. It’s sad when the only way out of something like gambling is to take your own life. It’s been like that for years, I think. The way that the disease affects so much of your life.” She began picking up her things so that she could leave the gentleman to his rest.

“Darling child, I have so enjoyed spending the afternoon with you. I’m not even sorry that I took up so much of your time that you could have been spending with others.” She told him that she was new to the family, and they had asked her to help out. “Good for them. They’re a good lot. I love Edwin to pieces. He’s saved my life a couple of times. Just to give me a place to hide and sometimes heal had made me indebted to the entire family.”

Standing up when he said that he must rest, she asked if she could give him a hug. Before she allowed him to answer her, she pulled him into her arms and held him tightly. When he finally returned her hug, she looked up at him when they were both satisfied.

“You must hang around for a bit longer, Alexander. I would love for you to meet my cousins. Joey and Carrie are heading back home in a few days, and Carrie will forever love meeting you. They would never tell anyone, never that, but it would be something that they’d treasure for a long time.” He told her that he’d enjoy that as well. “Good. Tomorrow night, come to the house after dinner. Or before, I don’t care so long as I can show off my new friend.”

“Do you think of me as your friend, Lady Katie?” She said she did. It didn’t matter if he didn’t think of her in the same way, but he was her friend forever, no matter what path he took in the future. “My, but you are a charmer. And the thing is, I believe every word you’ve said to me is the truth. Thank you.”

He kissed her on the cheek, and she smiled at him. After he walked her to the door in which she came in, she made her way home. It was the best time she’d ever had as an attorney, and she really was going to treasure the time she’d spent with him for a long time.

The house was empty when she got there. There were several envelopes with her name on them on the table in the front hall. Picking them up, she made her way to the dining room, her makeshift office for now, and opened them. The first one surprised her. It was her marriage license to Harman. The note said that it had been filed, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t have a nice big wedding at a later date. The next was the paperwork that she’d filed on behalf of Edwin this morning. The deed for the house that he’d given Alexander was ready to be filed.

“Are you busy?” She told Rain that she wasn’t. “Good. I’m going to pop in. I have some questions that I need, as a legal bagel…that sounded funnier in my head. Anyway, I’m on my way.”

Appearing in the room with her, Rain snapped her fingers and sat down. There was a beautiful pot of something in front of her, as well as two of the most beautiful tea cups she’d ever seen. However, she thought that she couldn’t enjoy them for the look on Rain’s face. She looked stressed.

“I have some news.” She said that she’d listen to her. “Thank you. It’s very kind of you to…You know, I’m going to just come out with it. Did you know that your boss senior and his wife are moving away? I know that you’re going to sell off their homes for them when you’re licensed here—you already are, just so you know. You have a license to work anywhere you want to set up shop. I did that for you. Storm will be jealous because she didn’t think of it first, and I’m happy about that.”

“You’re beating around the building. Tell me what it is you’re stalling about. And so you know, I thought I heard that you two were straight shooters and that I’d have to get used to the two of you telling me like it is.” Rain smiled at her and sipped her tea. “All right. My old boss is moving away with his wife. Why should I be concerned with that? I’m assuming that’s what you mean.”

“Yes. They’re going to die. Soon after leaving the States.” She asked if she could stop that from happening to a nice couple. “No. I’m afraid not. If they’re set to die, then they will. It’ll be some other way and more horrific than it was before. No, it’s just best to let that one go and pick up the pieces when asked. They have no heir. Not to say they don’t have anyone they can leave things to, but they’re going to soon write Jimmy out of the will that they both have. You can’t help with that either. It’s better, actually, if you don’t.”

“Why?” Rain took another sip of tea, but this one seemed to be longer than necessary. “What are you… they’re going to leave it to me, aren’t they? I don’t want that?”

“Yes, they are, and yes you do. That’s why I’m here. So that when you find out, you’re going to use their estate to help others. A lot of others.” She said she had enough money of her own to do that now. “No, you don’t. Their estate is large and well-established. They’re going to also, as you know leave you with the firm too. I’m going to help you a little with some of the charities that would make them happy. But I also think, and I’m not telling you to, you need to help Jimmy.”

“With their money? No, I won’t do that either. If they didn’t want him in the will…again, I think you’ve not told me everything. Why are you giving it to me in bits and pieces?” She told her. “I guess I can understand that. You don’t see the entire picture just yet, but you know that it’s going to be necessary for me to help Jimmy. All right. I’ll keep an open mind about that. What else do you know? Anything bad?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s going to be the manner in which Jimmy needs your help. I can’t see it all, but it’s worse than I had first thought.” She put her hands over Rains when she closed her eyes. “He’s not a good man. Not even if you were to take some of his traits away that he’s been relying on since he became an adult. He’s using people. Regardless of whether they realize it or not, Jimmy continues to use people up until they have no choice but to end their lives. It’s as harsh and surreal as that. He then simply steps over them and goes to the next fool that said that they’d help him.”

“He never used me.” She told her because she was smart enough to not allow it to happen. And that it wasn’t for lack of trying on his part. She told her to think about it. Closing her eyes, she thought about the times he’d come to her asking for help. She looked at Rain then. “He wanted me to help him find a date for him for a party that he was attending.”

“Yes, that’s just one. He thought that he’d be able to convince you to go with him, a show of support he told you, but you turned him down. He would have killed you that night. As it was when he wrecked his car, killing two people in a crosswalk. You would have been murdered by him later that night because you’d not lie that he’d had nothing to drink.” She thought of other times that he’d come to her for a date to something. Katie knew that he was a homosexual and often wondered why he’d ask her to go. “He needed to maintain the presence that he was a regular guy—his thoughts to call it that, not his fathers— so that they’d not lose any clients that might be too set in their ways to climb on the LGBTQ community that they served.”

She just stared at Rain. “Right now, I have a long list of things that he asked me to do for him. All of them that I can think of had something to do with a crash or trouble that he ended up in afterward. He even blamed some of them on me, telling me that I should have been with him and he’d not have done whatever he’d done to get into trouble.” It made her hair dance on her skin when she thought hard about it all. “I’m either very lucky, or someone was watching over me all this time.”

“I believe that you’ve been watched over too. Not only that, but you know what is right or wrong, and you just went with your heart. The only thing that saved you.” Katie asked her what she needed to do now. “Nothing. You know as much as I do now, and I’m glad that you do. Whatever befalls you from now on, you’ll be smarter in taking care of it simply because you’re aware.”

“Thank you.” She nodded and watched as Rain’s mood turned around. “Now you’re in a good mood. After telling me that I could have died? That’s just not right.”

“Remember, you’re alive. You must keep telling yourself that you are here and now, with Harman in your life, because you are a smart cookie.”

Chapter 4

Harman didn’t feel like he was getting anywhere on the book he was trying to put together. He had, long ago, made himself a flowchart that would keep him on track when writing but he couldn’t for the life of him start the first chapter. He’d started over just today on the book fourteen times only to get about a thousand words in and then delete it all.

He’d decided a couple of days ago that he was going to write about the babies being born in the hospital, but when he sat down at his desk, there was nothing in his head but cobwebs and empty spaces. Today when he’d gotten into his chair, he did the same thing and hadn’t even a single word toward the beginning of the first chapter.

Christ, he felt like he had—pulling out his notes that he’d been taking at the hospital after he’d been nearly killed, he read over what he wrote to himself about the women. They’d been working there for a long time, and he’d surmised, but it was him being in there that brought home how much he disliked them. And their ways of putting people and their families into two categories.

They were either road trash—he didn’t quite understand that one, or they were blinking the system by having too many kids. Over the two weeks that he’d been working there, he knew just about all he could stand to know about everyone who had given birth over that time period, as well as any employee who didn’t work the day they were talking about them. These women were brutal, too. The nurses had taken their anger—why anger? He couldn’t have said—and pointed it right at him. After he lectured them about the similarities between themselves and the people they were talking about it was then that one of them picked up the fire extinguisher and began hitting him in the head with it. Several times, as it turned out.

Leaning back in his chair, he stared at the computer screen. It was right there, just on the outer edges of his brain, to write a book. This one was entirely different than he’d ever written before. Usually, he wrote about flower gardens and what to plant when. Volcanic ash and what some of the things that it could be made into.

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