Page 58 of Judgments of Fire and Desire

I frowned. “The tax assessor?”

“Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the commotion in here. Everyone is in shock.”

I was surprised Stephanie hadn’t called me about that. I knew about everyone else beforehand.

“AJ called an emergency meeting. I’m pretty sure the media will be swarming that meeting like flies on shit.”

“A meeting with who?”

“All city employees and officials tomorrow evening. Since we work for the county, we get to miss out.”

He chuckled. I was grateful, because I had no desire to be amongst those people. My mama was going to meet me at Genesis’s house to cook for us tonight. Genesis had been going to work, but she was clearly affected by all of this. She was extremely withdrawn, far from the bubbly personality she normally was. I couldn’t imagine my family turning on me that way. I just tried to be there for her as much as possible. Monday night, I held her in my arms the entire night, occasionally hearing her sniffle.

Feelings of sadness, hurt, anger, and even betrayal seemed to be crawling all over her, threatening to choke her to death, but the biggest issue was what her brother had said to her about being chief. Genesis was extremely independent and by the book. She worked hard for everything she had. Her brother made her feel unworthy of her title. No matter how much I told her she deserved it, for her quick thinking in my trauma situations alone, she couldn’t seem to snap out of the funk his words put her in.

Her mother had been calling every day to check on her, but she didn’t really want to talk to her. She told me even her mother had blamed her initially. I hated this for her, so I tried to fill all those shoes alone. I was failing miserably. Her grandmother had called too, and she refused to answer the phone. When she told me what Grandma Jean had said to her, I was in shock. I’d only met her sweet and fun sides. What she said to Genesis caught me by surprise.

I didn’t feel like Grandma Jean was involved. I felt like the only thing she was guilty of was trying to protect a grown manand not making him accept responsibility for his actions. She might have even known about him being in trouble, but I highly doubted she was accepting money or anything like that, except for when she was a safehouse for someone. I wondered what the going rate for that sort of thing was.

I looked over at Tyson to see him gathering his things. It was getting to be about that time. I was ready to head out of here and start my evening as well. However, my office phone rang, halting all progress. I went to it and saw the mayor pro tem’s number. I frowned slightly, already sensing that I wouldn’t like this call. I answered. “Kyrie Patrick.”

“Judge Patrick. How are you this evening?”

“I’m good. How about you?”

“Good. I have a huge favor to ask of you. We’re having a meeting tomorrow evening with all city officials. I know that you are a county official, but since a lot of this concerns you, I wanted to ask if you would join us for the meeting, possibly filling us in on missing information.”

I rolled my eyes. “I would join, but I can’t say that I know any more than you do. You would need to get with the detectives on that.”

“Yes, sir. They will be in attendance as well. Thank you. We need to get to the bottom of what’s going on, because this is wrong on so many levels, not to mention embarrassing. First BISD, now the city. We owe the citizens of Beaumont better.”

I nodded. There was no way I would tell those people anything I knew. There was no way to know who was clean and who was dirty in that meeting. I supposed he thought all the guilty parties had been arrested. “That they do, sir. Do you mind if my bailiff comes?”

Tyson frowned at me, causing me to chuckle. I was more than sure he was wondering what I was roping him into.

“I don’t mind at all. See you tomorrow night, Judge.”

I ended the call without acknowledging his last statement. Looking up at Tyson with a smirk on my lips, I said, “We have to go to that meeting tomorrow night.”

“Maaaaaan, for real?”

“Yep. I asked for you to go because I need someone there that I trust. I don’t know AJ like that, and everybody else can be suspect.”

He slowly shook his head. “A’ight. But ain’t your woman gon’ be there?”

“She most likely will since she’s a city employee, but my job is to protect her, not have her in the trenches with me.”

He huffed. “I guess. See you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, man.”

He left out, and I prepared to leave for the day to be with my love. I grabbed my briefcase and my cell phone from the desk to head her way until I saw Stephanie standing in my doorway. I frowned slightly, because I felt a way about her not telling me about the tax assessor. She lifted her hands when she saw my facial expression. “I apologize. I had to keep that one under wraps until I got the warrant. As soon as I got it, I went and got her ass.”

“Why did you have to keep it under wraps?”

“The lieutenant said her family was amongst the affluent of Beaumont and that I couldn’t tell a soul until it was in the bag. When I got the warrant, I wanted to get to her before she left the premises. She was the financial mastermind… had to be. She even went as far as padding taxes to get what they needed. Once this is all over, the city may have to file Chapter 9 bankruptcy.”

My eyebrows lifted. This was unreal. Not only were they betraying the citizens’ trust, but they were beating them out of their hard-earned money. She was right. The public outrage would be so great people would probably start to move out. Not to mention, the city would have to reimburse thoseoverpayments for however many years it was going on. Then the financial structure would be unstable and would likely crumble without a bailout.

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