Page 101 of Bad Seed

Before he could answer, his phone rang. “It’s Aaron.”

Harley waved at him to answer and got up to refill her coffee.

“Hello.”

“Hey, little brother, I have something interestingto share. If you want your girl to hear it, put this on speaker.”

“Okay, just a sec,” Brendan said. “It’s on speaker, so what’s up?”

Harley came back to the table with her coffee, but instead of sitting in her chair, she sat in Brendan’s lap to listen.

“Your stalker, Justine Beaumont, has been arrested for the murder of her mother. I’d say that knife she pulled on you and the threatening note she left on your door weren’t as innocuous as we assumed.”

The skin crawled on the back of Brendan’s neck. “You aren’t serious.”

“Dead serious, just like the mother. Chief Warren told us at roll call. Apparently, the Dallas PD was running a background check on Justine. Something about the mother’s death was suspicious, and when they saw Justine’s rap sheet, they began following up. The chief said they called to ask about the incident at Trapper’s Bar and Grill. And then the chief found out today that she’d been arrested. From what I gather, she kind of told on herself. She’s crazy, as in psychopath crazy. You kept saying something was wrong with her. I guess you were right.”

“I wonder if Larry knows.” Brendan said.

“He knew Karen was dead, because the detective told him, and he knew they suspected Justine,” Aaron said. “I don’t know if they notified him of his daughter’s arrest or not.”

“And I thought we had a messed-up family,” Brendan said.

“We did, until they hauled Clyde off to prison. Hey, I gotta go. Yancy’s waiting for me. Take care. Hello to your pretty lady.”

The call ended, but Harley was still sitting in Brendan’s lap. She slid her arm around his neck and hugged him.

“She pulled a knife on you?” Harley asked.

He nodded. “She was aiming for my face. I ducked, and it caught the side of my neck instead, before I knocked it out of her hand.”

“Good lord! I know this is stating the obvious, but you sure dodged a bullet with that one,” she said.

He lifted a curl away from the healing wound on her head and then kissed her cheek. “Dodging bullets seems to be a thing,” he said. “But yours was real.” Then his phone signaled a text. “I guess this is the morning for news,” he said as he scanned the message and then handed her the phone. “Look at that.”

“Federal agents just arrested Larry Beaumont? Ray didn’t waste time nailing him to the wall, did he? I wonder how all that is going to play out now. No manager on-site and a new owner who has yet to sign final papers. Kind of puts you all in the twilight zone for a while,” Harley said.

“We’ll be fine. Liz will keep her finger on the pulse until Wolf can take possession.”

“What are we going to do today?” she asked.

“You’re going to lie around, watch movies, eat stuff, nap, take your meds, and heal.”

“And what will you be doing?” she asked.

“Ah, Sunshine…whatever your heart desires.”

***

Two days later, Wilhem Crossley woke up in the morning and realized that ever since the raid, he’d been coasting from the shock of everything Harley Banks had uncovered. Even the warning he’d given her had been a guilt-ridden impulse. He wanted to forget it had ever happened, but he couldn’t.

Things had been left undone. The head of the snake that had swallowed women and children whole and hidden them in his warehouse was still unknown. He needed answers, but no one was communicating. He feared it was because the federal authorities still viewed him with suspicion, and that alone made him sick.

Daily, he went over everything Harley had told him and shown him, and he was still puzzled by how long this had gone on right under his nose. The attention to detail had been meticulous. Fake companies, fake invoices, ghost merchandise, and money being funneled elsewhere. She had discovered the deceit, but not who was responsible or where the stolen money went. It was making him crazy, going through employee names every day, trying to make one of them fit. But none of them had access to all of it but him and his son. Whowithin the organization had the power and know-how to pull this off without rousing his suspicion?

It was with a heavy heart that he went down to breakfast. He was in the morning room with a waffle and coffee when he heard Tip coming down the stairs and talking on the phone. Wilhem couldn’t hear the words, but the angry tone in Tip’s voice was apparent.

***

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