Page 150 of Maddy's Justice

“Yes, me too.”

“So, I wasn’t losing my mind. I was being followed,” Marc said trying to smile.

“No, you weren’t losing your mind. At least no more than usual. Tony will get her back and some people will pay for this. We need to go upstairs.”

“Did you know Tony and his pals snatched Troy McGovern and got a complete confession from him?” Marc asked.

“What? No, what, how, what did he say?” Connie said.

“He said Troy spilled it all, voluntarily. He didn’t go into details. Do we still go upstairs?” Marc asked.

Connie thought about it for a moment then said, “Yes they’re waiting for us. They don’t know what Troy said and neither do we. We have a client to represent. Let’s do it.”

* * * * * * *

“Twenty million? Twenty Million!” Bandon Stafford asked then bellowed. “The sixteen we offered was crazy enough. This is getting out of hand.”

Marc, finally having his fill of the abrasive, entitled and thoroughly disgusting Brandon Stafford, stood up and moved to a chair next to Bandon.

Marc positioned the chair so he was almost facing him and calmly said, “Listen to me. I’m your lawyer and it’s time you set your ego aside.”

Brandon started to say something but before he could, Marc held up a hand, leaned into him and said, “Shut up! Don’t say a goddamn word. Just listen!”

A shocked Brandon Stafford, a spoiled brat since birth, sat back staggered at being spoken to like this.

“You, more than anyone else are to blame for this. You’ve been sitting on your throne, wallowing in Troy’s money while he treated professional women like playthings. And all of you knew about it. Well, now you have to pay for it.”

Marc leaned in a little closer and said, “Take the offer. We cannot win this case at trial. It’s a fool’s errand to even think so. With all of the bullshit you people allowed, you’ll wish you would have taken it.”

“You’re right, we will,” Cliff Spenser said.

They were in Brandon’s office with Gavin Blake, the third Stafford, Hughes lawyer also in attendance.

Marc moved back to where he had been sitting and sat quietly while Cliff and Connie discussed the details. Since there weren’t many, the meeting only lasted a few more minutes.

“We’ll get it written up,” Connie said. “It shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

“We’ll get the money together. Hopefully, we’ll have word about Melanie soon,” Cliff said.

“There he is,” Carvelli said to Agent Diggs.

They were inside the heliport terminal and the counterman Maddy had talked to had just come through a door behind the counter. The terminal had two lines of tourists with a dozen or so people in line. They were each paying up to four hundred dollars for a ride around the city.

FBI agents Diggs and Casey held up their shields in front of the young man. The look of concern on his face was close to terror which made Carvelli suppress a smile.

“We’re looking for some information,” Brenda Casey said after introducing themselves. “You have a helicopter service that routinely takes James Labelle somewhere up north. Who is it?”

By now, the manager had come out to see what was going on. Casey and Diggs showed him their creds then asked the same thing.

“Why do you want to know?” the manager asked,

“We want to talk to them,” Casey pleasantly said before Diggs verbally slapped him.

“That’s North Country,” the counterman said. “Kevin and Roy.”

“Where can we find them?” Casey asked.

“They’re out and I don’t expect them back for a couple of hours. You just missed them. They left about fifteen minutes ago taking a family to Indianapolis. They won’t be back until seven-thirty, eight o’clock. Around then.”

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