Page 66 of Overstaying His Welcome

But he wasn’t completely on board. He wasn’t completely attuned to everything around us.

It doesn’t help that he’s still recovering. Though I can’t be mad since he’s limited in what he can and can’t do. I had a feeling if he were fully capable, he’d already be out hunting down whoever did this.

“Baby, I need you to try to eat something for me,” I told him as I raised the bowl into his line of sight.

He was on the bed, his back propped up at an angle. The tv played on a low volume across the room, some old black and white film as background noise.

The soup I’d had Jared order for him smelled delicious. I also knew it was one of his favorites. And given my man never turned down a good meal, I knew his emotions were causing this change.

That and the blank stare he wore.

“Baby,” I urged again.

His head swiveled my way, his eyes on me as if they weren’t really seeing me. I hated that he was hurting. If I could take away the pain, I would.

“Why? Why them?”

The rasp in his voice broke my heart. He didn’t deserve to deal with all this. He didn’t deserve losing the only people he considered family.

Even before going out to see them, I knew those two were as close as he allowed himself to get. His mother had been his rock during his younger years. Losing her had changed him greatly.

Losing the Linds would too, only in a different way.

“I’m not sure why he hurt them, baby. It’s not fair. We both know that. I’m sorry you lost them.”

A tear trailed down his cheek. I wiped it away before it could fall, then I leaned forward, pressing my head against his. His eyes closed with the movement.

“No matter what comes next, I’ll be there with you. We’ll take care of their services. They deserve to have a proper send off, right?”

A shift came over him with my words. His eyes flew open as he leaned back.

“We’ll honor them. We have to call Stabler. I don’t want them to just be tossed aside. And call Dallas. He’s my lawyer, remember? He’ll look over any paperwork.”

“I doubt Stabler would do anything like that. Not after finding out there’s a connection.”

“Still,” he said as he reached for his phone on the bedside table.

Once he pulled up the contact, he relaxed again. I grabbed a notebook from the table across the room and sat with it to take any notes.

“Stabler,” the man answered, his voice tense.

“It’s Tank. I’m calling about the Linds.” He paused as his voice broke. “I need to make sure their bodies don’t wind up somewhere they shouldn’t be.”

The other man hummed. “I can have them tagged for you. Are one of your guys going to come grab them? From what I’ve seen, they were a big part of the community here. Several people might want to honor them as well.”

Tank nodded along to the suggestion. “I figured that might be the case. Did you find any information about a lawyer or anything in the house? I’ll need to get their wills over to Dallas. I don’t even know if they have plots or if they wanted to be cremated.”

Panicked eyes met mine. I shook my head, reaching for the phone despite it being on speaker. If there was one thing I could do, it was help plan and organize some things. I’d had plenty of help along the way from Marten, but I was also adept at handling shit when I needed to. I mostly told my father I was helpless so he wouldn’t fire my friend.

Speaking of, I needed to have Jared check on him again. Last update he texted me, Marten was secure in the hospital under observation from the smoke inhalation. I hadn’t been able to go see him. Hopefully things were handled soon because I needed to know he was truly fine.

“Stabler, this is Chance. I’m Tank’s partner. Can you tell me what all you know so far?”

He cleared his throat. “Um, yeah. There was some paperwork from a lawyer in the house. It was tucked away upstairs. Strong, my partner right now, found it when she was looking for anything that might be suspicious. I can get it sent over to Memphis if you want. I don’t have this Dallas guy’s contact info.”

“Send it straight to Tank’s phone please. The others are working on the case. They need to focus. This is personal. I’ll handle it.” Even if I hadn’t known who Dallas was, I would havefound out quickly. I wasn’t going to pass something like this off to anyone else.

“Understood,” he replied. “As for the other, I’ll have the bodies tagged with Tank as next of kin. He’ll be able to reach out to the local morgue for next steps after that.”

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