Page 5 of Waylon

“Roman, have you found out what happened to little Miss Rice?” He nearly snarled at the man, his boss and father, who stood in the doorway, not coming in. “I’ve not seen hide nor hair of her since about a month ago. See what the holdup is in getting her to come in here. I know her place burnt down but there isn’t any reason she doesn’t come in and tell us what happened. Poor girl. She must be in a lot of pain or something is all I can figure. You do know that she’s the only one that keeps you on the straight and narrow when you go to court with her research.”

“She does not do my research, and nor is she the only one that…Dad, I can and do my own research when I have to go to court.” To which he didn’t add that was never going to happen again. “I understand that you like her but there isn’t anything I can do if she’s not answering her calls.”

“Find her.” When his dad stood there for several moments, staring at him, Roman wanted to wipe his nose. Even if he were to step one more foot into his office, his dad would see the coke that was all over his desk and the hundred dollar bill—only the best for him—rolled up to help pave the way for him to get stoned. “You have got a bit of powder on your nose, Roman. I’ve warned you before about doing that in the office where anyone can see you. Go home. Or better yet, go and find that girl.”

He didn’t need to be told twice to go home. As he was gathering up his empty briefcase along with his coat from last night, he was out the door and into the streets in less time than he took to try and figure out where he was when he woke up in his office this morning, naked and blurry-eyed.

By the time he remembered that he didn’t have a car at the office, he was sweaty and pissed. It didn’t take him long to be either nowadays, but at least he looked good while doing it. Roman knew that he’d lost a great deal of weight. He’d been a fat slob for most of his life and had only graduated from law school because his dad had a great deal of money. He no more knew the law than what his own phone number was.

“Mr. Davis, there are several messages for you. Also, we need to speak to you about your rooms.” Holding out the little papers that were as pink as his eyes had been earlier, he took them from the butler and made his way to his rooms. He knew that still living at home at his age was pathetic, but it was free;he knew the address, and there was someone to clean up after him. As well as wash up his clothing. “Mr. Davis, before you go up, there is the little matter of Ms. Ambrosa Pennington.”

“What about her?” He nodded in the direction of the library and turned to walk away. He wanted to tell him to tell her he was still out, but she was standing there staring at him like he was some kind of insect under her microscope. Or was it a stethoscope? Like he knew what she did when out and about all day. “Hello, Amby. How’s life treating y—”

The punch to his face took him off guard and had him lashing out at her almost as soon as she drew back to hit him again. But slapping her back, a huge mistake on his part, had her pulling out her gun and putting it to his forehead. He’d forgotten that, too. She wasn’t one to mess around with.

“Now, Amby, we’ve talked about this before. No guns in the—what was that for?” She told him to stop talking to her as if she were a simpleton after popping him in the head with the barrel of the handgun she had. “I don’t believe that I was. Put the gun away, and let’s start over. How are the wedding plans coming along?”

“They’re not.” He wanted to leap for joy in not having to marry her, but he knew that if his father were to find out about this, he’d cut him off at his cock. “Have you seen today’s paper, Roman? Or at least the front page? It’s a very nice picture of you with your dick hanging out and your hands all over a hooker by the name of Loulou. It’s funny that the headlines asked me the same question that you did.How are the wedding plans going?I’m finished with you.” She turned on her heel but not before coming back and punching him in the face again. “I’m going to call your father right now and have this finished. I never wanted to marry you in the first place, but he promised me a large sum of money to do it. No way am I saddling myself with you.”

His mind was centered on thelarge sum of money—just how much, he wondered—that she’d mentioned. Before he could get his mouth to work, his entire face hurting, not only was Amby out the door but he could hear her barking orders to the driver he presumed to take her to the Davis offices. His goose was cooked, as the old and odd saying went.

He’d forgotten about the body in his office before he could regret leaving the office so soon. What would the housekeeping people say when they ran across him? He was going to say that he didn’t know anything about it as he’d been gone before noon. His dad would pitch a bitch about it, having to have the room cleaned, but he had more important things to worry about. That fucking cunt Rice and her checks.

It had taken him nearly four years to figure out that he could have gotten them sent to his firm. He’d concocted some story about how he had insurance, too, and there wasn’t any point in them both doing the searches. When all the time she was working right there in the office for him. But the insurance companies, eight of them in total, decided that they’d be better served to find her on their own. That was when the checks started coming to his firm, eight of them over the next year. Well, his dad’s firm for now.

Then that stupid shit Donnie had stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong. Christ, the man had actually gone to Rice and handed over the checks that had come into the mail room when he’d explicitly told him to bring them to his office as he was looking over the accounts. Not that he’d get his hand dirty in killing him off, but it had cost him a pretty penny in getting the man dead so that he’d learn a lesson. Of course, he was dead, and that wasn’t a good lesson for him to learn, but he was out of his hair for the time being.

Going up to his rooms, he was nearly ready to leave when he realized that his room wasn’t made up and there was all kinds of shit laying around that he had wanted put away. Clothing, even some coke that he’d missed, was on his dresser. Making sure that he used up the smack amongst his underwear and socks, he went to his phone and called the kitchen. When no one answered, he was just ready to pull out his gun and shoot the lot of them. But that would piss off his father, and he had enough to deal with right now.

There had to be a way that he could go to the insurance company, and…well, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but to tell them that he’d lost the checks wouldn’t go over very well. They’dalready put some stipulations on only Rice being able to cash them. They wanted her driver’s license, birth certificate as well as her personally there to collect. He could get the other two but having her there? Well, that was the problem. That was when he came up with the plan to kill her off and then collect the insurance money after proving that she was indeed dead. That was going to be the highlight of his week, having her killed. He’d hated her since she was brought to the firm by his dad. And, of course his dad loved her the pieces. Roman just wanted to chop her up into pieces and be done with her.

Since he knew so very little about law and how to get around to collecting on the checks he’d had Rice actually look up on how to cheat her out of the money. Hell, he didn’t even understand his Marandi rights when read to him at least once a week.

Nothing had gotten him into so much trouble that he decided to have himself driven everywhere so that he’d not first of all wreck and secondly to know where he parked his car. That had been a major problem for him, trying to remember where he’d parked and how much towing was going to cost him. Or his dad at least.

Then Rice had come to him with the fact that he couldn’t legally collect checks when the person was still alive. After that, he’d been plotting her demise. Rice was one of the smartest women he knew, and yet she was the dumbest as well. Women were all stupid if anyone asked him.

Going to the kitchen, he found the big room empty. Even after looking everywhere he knew how to find his way around, he couldn’t find a single person that worked there. After standing in the living room yelling for them, he couldn’t get anyone to come. That was when he hit on the idea that he needed to get out of the house before his dad came home. It would be just like him to have not cleaned up his mess at work and had left the body there for him to take care of.

Not that he’d ever taken care of a body before. It was the first time he’d ever killed anyone personally. It made him sort of squeamish to see all that blood that came from the wound he’d inflicted and even more sick to his stomach when the body continued to twitch after he’d shot him. But it was all the man’s fault. He’d made him kill him by losing sight of Rice and not bringing her heart to him after he killed her. So now he’d have to do it all on his own.

Roman had been of the opinion that if he didn’t acknowledge something that happened, then it couldn’t be true. Same with laws. If he didn’t understand them, then they didn’t exist. It had gotten him, with a good deal of his father’s money, out of more situations than he could remember. All he’d wanted to do was to have some fun with people. His dad could never understand that, even after all these years.

After going to the garage, where there were usually at least five people hanging around doing whatever they got paid to do, it too was devoid of people. He was pissed off that he was going to have to drive himself to find his dealer. Since he’d stopped driving, he didn’t know where to find him either. Christ, he hated all people today.

Just as he was pulling out of the driveway and was about twenty feet or so from it, several cruisers came up behind him only to turn into the driveway where he’d just come from. Whatever made the staff leave—he hoped they had a good reason or they sure were going to be in trouble when the police showed up.

It took him nearly three hours to find the house where he’d get his nose candy at—he secretly loved using all those terms he heard on the television and used them whenever he could. However, when he got there, it looked like the place had been raided. There was no one around there either. Also, it looked as if a fire had been set in the place across the street. Even the cars that were usually in the drive were burnt up. Knocking on the door a second time, it was finally answered by some construction guys or something. They asked him what he wanted.

“I have business to attend to here.” He told him that they’d all been arrested and that he was there to get anything of value from the home before it, too, was torn down. “When? Damn it, why don’t people notify me when this shit is going to happen. Did that old lady across the street have anything to do with it? I swear she was forever calling the cops on us…them.”

“I can’t help you, mister. The police come by here several times a day now, so you’d best be getting away from here unless you want to be arrested as well.” The door was closed in his face, and that pissed him off as well.

Parking his car had been easy, but he’d left it running. A quick in and out, and he’d be on his way again. Now it wasn’t starting, and he didn’t remember to bring his phone with him. Walking back to the house, he knocked several times again to find out if he could borrow their phone to call his dad. He hoped that they had the number because he didn’t have a clue about that either.

~*~

Londyn was nearly finished reading the newspaper—just one more section when Waylon joined her in the living room. It had been a long time since she’d had the time to read an entire newspaper by herself. It wasn’t much of a place that Waylon had but it was nice and cool as well as clean.

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