Page 22 of Jake

“Good. Now we’ll see who gets to keep me from entering my own home. Fuckers, all of you.” As she stood there waiting, she started clicking off the things she was going to do now that she had more money. Jake would have to fork over a bit more than he had been willing to before. A lot more, as a matter of fact. She was so deep in thought that she was startled when the police were standing in front of her.

“I want you to arrest these pricks. They’re blocking me from entering my home, and are putting furniture in there that I had no say over.” She moved to the house again and was blocked again, this time by the men in blue. “I don’t know what is up your asses, but I’ve had about all I can take of people being stupid around me. There are days when I think the entire world has gone fucking retarded. What the fuck is up your ass now?”

“Ms. Lane? We’re going to have to ask you to come along with us. We have a few things to discuss with you about your parents.” She said she wasn’t Ms. Lane. “But you are. We have a warrant out for your arrest. Now, I would suggest that you come along….”

“You’re not going to arrest me, you moron. I’m not going anywhere but into my home. And then I’m going to clean house. Quite literally. Everything in there is going to come out and get burned on this front lawn.” Laughter had her turning, and she saw the men who had moved all that crap into her house watching from the front porch. Flipping them off, she turned back to the police. “Now, as I was saying, you are going to get the fuck out of my way before I have to hurt one of you. I just want to go in there and make plans.”

“Your mother is dead. Your father too, did you know that?” She said that Jake had told her. “Did you hurt your mother, Ms. Lane? Before you left the house yesterday morning, did you hurt her?”

“Yes. So? She pissed me off.” The officer looked at his partner then back at her. “What is it? I have shit to do.”

“We’re going to have to take you in, Ms. Lane. There are a few questions you have to answer.” She jerked her arm from him when he touched her. “Ms. Lane, I’m going to cuff you if you don’t come along peacefully.”

Carol slapped him, hard enough to knock him back on the ground. Then before she could say a word, she found herself down on the ground as well, with someone sitting atop her. And no matter how many times she told him to remove himself from her person, he dug his knees deeper into her back. Then he jerked her arms around behind her and tied them together.

Someone was going to pay for this. Jake was going to be very busy taking all these asses to court when she spoke to him. He might even let her have a limitless spending spree when she was finished with her list.

~~~

Jake hung up the phone and sat still. Several million things were running through his mind right now, and not one of them seemed to pause long enough for him to get a grasp on them to sort them out. He looked up when he heard someone say his name. Grandma was sitting there looking at him with the strangest look on her face.

“I take it you know.” He asked her which thing that would be. “Carol has been arrested. She hit an officer at your home about an hour ago. They were taking her in to ask her about her mother’s death when she turned on them. She’s a fool if she thinks this is going to just go away.”

“I know. I just heard. She’s asking them to call me to come there and bail her out. I told them to lose my number.” She told him good boy. “What else? I’m sure there is plenty.”

“There is, but we’ll talk about them one at a time. Not in any particular order, but we’ll get to them. I spoke to Forrest. He said he was worried about you.” Jake said he was fine. “Are you? You look a little freaked out. Is that a term to use in these kinds of situations?”

“I have no idea.” She nodded. “Forrest said he was going to ask you to speak to his dad about dinner tomorrow night. Did you?”

“Oh yes. I had a great deal of fun with it as well. Did you know that at one time, Ranford Stout and his wife were employees of mine? I just remembered that when I saw his fat face an hour ago. He’ll be there, by the way.” Jake nodded. “Do you want to tell me why you’re gathering the banes of your lives around you? Not me, of course, but the rest of them?”

“We were going to wait and tell you all at once, but I need to tell you now. Forrest and I think it would be better for you if we did.” He told her what Forrest and he had found out. “So, my parents’ not going to the wedding wasn’t because they hated me or Carol; they weren’t there because of the deal he’d made with Tyler Lane.”

“What did they expect to happen? That she might kill you?” Jake said he had no idea. He was hoping to find out tomorrow night. “I see. And you’re telling me early so that I can have my gun at the ready when he says he did it?”

“No. I wanted to tell you in the event that you didn’t want to show up. It’s going to be nasty.” She said she had no doubt that it would be. “So, we’ll understand if you tell me no. I wouldn’t be there either if I didn’t need to know what the hell they were thinking and why they did this to me.”

“Money? Is there money involved?” He told her he would tell her at the dinner. “Forrest made some calls and got someone to take a peek, didn’t he? I knew that he had some very talented friends that could do things less than above board. What are you going to say to him? And if I were you, I’d not go at this alone.”

“No. Forrest is calling in a couple of his friends that are going to act as witnesses. There is also the new system that we’re having put in the house. It was being put in before this thing with Father, just in the event that Carol showed up and tried something stupid. Which I guess she did.” Jake leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I feel like a rabbit in a hole. I mean, the night I came home and found my house devoid of Carol was the best thing I’ve ever had happen. And now it seems like everything that can go wrong has.”

“But you met Forrest. That has to be something good.” He looked at his grandma. “Honey, you’ll get through this. I know you will. And once it’s all over.... Good heavens. You’re going to tell them all of it, aren’t you?”

He laughed, the first one he’d had in a bit. “Yes, we’re going to tell them that Forrest and I are lovers and that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives making each other happy. If we can ever get things back to a reasonable state of normalcy.”

“I don’t think you’ll want normal again now. And I’ll be there. For the simple pleasure of seeing their faces when you tell them.” She rubbed her hands together. “Jake, my boy, this is going to shake a lot of trees now. You see if it doesn’t.”

He hoped so. He really did. He was pissed off and exhausted. Not a good combination when it came to having long overdue conversations with his parents or his lover’s father. Grandma told him that she was taking them out to dinner and that was final.

He called Forrest to let him know. Tomorrow they were going to come in and pack up his office here. Then he’d be moving his work to Stout and Winslow. Jake could not wait. And then that night, they’d have the dinner party of their life. He just hoped he’d get a chance to have some fun too.

Chapter 10

Thomas stood in the alley and waited. He knew that Forrest was in his office. There were enough people moving in and out of it that it had to mean that he was either going to be moving out or he was taking on a partner. He wondered who the fuck he thought he was going to play with now. When he finally saw him coming out with another man, he stepped in front of him. Thomas was a little pissed that Forrest didn’t even look upset that he was there.

“Thomas. It’s been a while. Not long enough, but a while. How the hell have you been? Oh, this is my lover, Jake. Jake, this is Thomas, the man I was telling you about.” The other man didn’t mean shit to him. “I thought you were warned to stay away from me.”

“Nobody tells me what I can and can’t do, Forrest. I want to know where my money is.” He asked him what money that would be. “The money that you’re going to pay me for keeping my mouth shut on what a prick you are.”

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